LinkedIn TIPS for Students/Jobseekers

[jaygarcia]

Hello Students/Jobseekers,

There is no better platform to address professionals than LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social media, and users access it to connect with other professionals, post job openings, recruit candidates, and stay up to date on the current developments from companies and impactful people around the world.

You don't have to wait until you enter the workforce to start taking advantage of this platform. College students can use LinkedIn to establish a professional online presence, which is important for getting jobs, internships, and volunteer opportunities while still in school.  

Here are some statistics to help you understand the world’s largest professional network, LinkedIn:

900M Members in 200 countries and regions worldwide.

58M+ Companies listed.

129K Schools listed.

50M People using LinkedIn to search for jobs each week.

8 people are hired via LinkedIn each minute.

LinkedIn Profile:

Before you start engaging on LinkedIn, make sure that your profiles are 100% complete.

Here are the tips I provide jobseekers during my LinkedIn workshops:

Banner photo: personal/professional brand, this is your billboard.

Your Photo: smile and dress for the position you are targeting.

Headline: what you do or want to do.

About: make your first sentence count, it is your story. I see this as a cover letter.

Featured: showcase work/accomplishments you are most proud of.

Activities: use all three; posts (daily), documents (weekly), articles (quarterly). Engage, Engage, Engage!

Experience: paint a picture, show results/data, and add media

Education: leave dates out.

Volunteering: do you give back to the community, list nonprofits.

Certifications: brag about them, list them all, especially your Alteryx certs :)

Skills/Endorsements: relevant to the position(s) being targeted.

Recommendations: always give at least one more than what you received (51/49 rule).

Accomplishments: articles, awards, organizations.

Interests: follow people and org's you want to be associated with.

Posting:

To build your brand and stay relevant in this platform you must post every single day. Yes, every day. Here is my secret, I dedicate 30 minutes each day before I put my head on the pillow to building and maintaining the brand on LinkedIn. This includes thinking and creating the post for the following day, commenting on at least 10 posts from people (employees/educators/students/allies) that I want to do business with/network, sending out 10 connection requests, liking 10 posts, and replying to each comment made on my daily post. You must be consistent for this to work.

If you are reading this and know you should be posting but cannot imagine how to have enough content to consistently create one post per week, let alone four or five.

Good news is LinkedIn has given you ten ideas before you even start:

1) Post a photo (a LinkedIn post with image gets 2X the engagement rate)

2) Post a video

3) Post a document

4) Celebrate an occasion

5) Find an expert

6) Share a profile

7) Share that you are hiring

8) Create a poll

9) Offer help

10) Post your own thoughts

Remember, your posts don't always have to be about business, share personal things too, share who you are!

Okay, I’m almost done, promise.

We have all heard, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, right? I take it a step further, it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you! That is your brand!

By actively using LinkedIn, you can build your brand and everyone that sees your posts, shares, likes, comments, connects with you, will know you and what you can bring to their organization.

Jay Garcia

SparkED Education Program Manager  

LinkedIn Top Voice

Forbes Coaches Council Member