LinkedIn is a professional networking site you can use to connect with all types of professionals, especially those in your desired career fields. LinkedIn is used to connect with others and network in order to make connections in your career field or to get more information about a particular company. LinkedIn is growing rapidly with over 800 million users!
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Why You Need a LinkedIn Profile
- 70% of jobs are found through NETWORKING
- A positive professional online presence is expected. Resumes aren’t enough.
- 89% of companies are using social networks for recruiting.
- Creates opportunities to connect with professionals that Facebook, Google + and other online job boards cannot
What Can LinkedIn Help Me With?
- Networking: Connect with experts in your desired career field to get information, get questions answered and build relationships.
- Explore Companies: Many companies have LinkedIn pages and current employees are listed. Here you can see what these people have done in the past in order to gain their current positions. Connect your LinkedIn profile to your ScienceWorks account. You can also use this tool to research companies in order to prepare for a job interview.
- Find Jobs & Internships: LinkedIn is not advertised as a job board, but many companies post openings to get the word out. After you customize your profile, LinkedIn will send you updates on jobs that you may be interested in.
- Build a Professional Brand: Start creating your professional brand that others can see. Advertise your strengths and interests and continually enhance your brand by adding experience or projects you are working on. Be Consistent.
- Explore New Careers: Start browsing LinkedIn by searching for careers you are interested in. View other LinkedIn users pages that have your ‘dream job’ and find out what they did to get there. This is an excellent way to develop your starter goals.
- Education on Industry Trends: LinkedIn has great news feeds that you can use to get recent news, trends and updates on your interests or desired industry stats to keep you on your path to success.
- Turn Relationships into Opportunities: Once you start connecting with others, be creative in your approach of turning these relationships into job opportunities. Keep in contact with professionals or companies you are interested in so that when they are hiring, they will turn to those they know (You!) first.
Get Started with LinkedIn
1. Build Your Profile
This is the first step in creating your professional brand. Think of your LinkedIn profile as the first impression you will make to the online world. The goal is to complete your profile 100% and LinkedIn will prompt you with tasks that you can do to enhance and grow your profile each time you log on.
Some Sections Include:
- Your URL: Customize it! When editing your profile, make sure to customize your LinkedIn URL to your name. Place this URL in your email signatures, future business cards and resume.
- Email Address: Get a professional email address, preferably to include your name. (Bevo.Longhorn@utexas.edu)
- Photo: Adding a photo is key so other users know you are a real person. Choose one that is only of you, not a selfie, and is professional in nature. Have a friend take a picture of your outside in front of a neutral background in natural light.
- Headline: Capture the attention of those you want to connect with by using words related to your career goals. Ex. “University of Texas Biology Major, Research Assistant” or “Recent graduate in Computer Science seeking Programming Positions.”
- Summary: Use key words that someone might use to search you and your career interests. This gives other users a snapshot of your experience and interests. Be concise and specific and give the reader a glimpse of your personality. Some things you may include in your summary: where you attend school, your major, career interests, brief description of your experience, any specialties you have or are interested in and specific skills you have.
- Experience: Expand on any experiences you have in a resume type format. LinkedIn will allow you to enter specific information to include company, position, dates and location then you can put more descriptors of specific job accomplishments to give the reader a detailed picture of your experience.
- Education: Include school name and major/minor, expected graduation date, and your student activities. This will help other students and alumni connect with you.
- Other Sections: You can add additional information like Courses, Honors/Awards, Languages, Student Organizations, Projects, Publications, Skills, Test Scores, Volunteer Experiences
2. Connect!
After you have created your profile, it’s time to start making connections. The only way to find networking opportunities is to make more connections.
Connect with People You Know
LinkedIn encourages connecting with those that you know, then building your connections through those people. Start with friends, co-workers, classmates, and alumni. Start the foundation here and build connections from browsing their connections. Make sure to send a personalized message that is offered when you ‘connect’. Give a reminder of who you are and how you know the other person. If you do not personally know a connection, give them background information on you and your interests and explain why you want to connect. Here's an example of a message you can send if you're interested in having a Career Conversation with the person:
You can adapt the following script to message people you find on LinkedIn:
"Hi (name), I'm a student at UT Austin and I'm interested in going into (field). I saw you (had internship or currently work) at (company). Would you be willing to talk to me about your experience in this role? I'm free (dates and times). Thank you!"
Join Groups
- Look for groups to connect with experts in your desired career field.
- Participate with group discussions and easily connect with others that you may not know directly. These connections will be more willing to connect with you since you share a common interest or goal.
- Gain knowledge of current trends in your industry and explore the pages of other group members.
3. Put Your Profile to Use
Log on Regularly
Spend a few minutes a day to improve your profile and find connections. Make sure you turn on notifications so you know if you get messages or requests. LinkedIn can only work for you if you learn how to work it!
Research Companies and Jobs
Continually search for companies you are interested in, learn about their brand and find out what their current employers were doing before they got there. Spend time looking at job descriptions to find out what you should be doing while you are in school to get that desired experience.
Post to Linkedin
Did you find a cool career or industry-related article? Did you write a blog for your student org? Did you get a new job? Make sure you post about it and use hashtags so your network and the LinkedIn community know about it!