I had the pleasure of watching a recorded event put on by the CPRS surrounding how to use LinkedIn effectively, hosted by Madi Fuller, a career coach. This informative event supplied me with some tactful tips I am excited to incorporate to my LinkedIn profile to help build upon it and build my network, tips I intend to share in this post.
Profile 101:
As a new user to the LinkedIn world I have had many questions surrounding how to create a strong network and enhance my profile to make me stand out to potential internship opportunities as well as work. Madi Fuller provided great tips on building your profile, beginning with your headline.
Your headline is space whereby you have 120 characters to tell people who you are and what you do and to break it down further Madi provided us with an equation:
Action You Do + Your Passion.
You action would be 4 words or less of what you do, what you have done or what you hope to do, so for example; public relations professional. And your passion is why you do what you do, which could be something like: passionate about connecting, building up companies etc.,.
The next section of your profile consists of your summary this section should provide people with an overview of your professional experiences, what do do off the clock (humanizes you, brings personality), and what do you want people to do after they look at your profile. The last portion is a call to action this can include: looking for work, building my network or seeking an internship.
Job Search 101:
So now that you have enhanced your profile, you want to start looking at potential job or internship opportunities, and 93% of recruiters use LinkedIn to research and recruit candidates.
Here are some helpful tips: do your homework, look at the jobs information, who posted it? Get over yourself, often social media platforms make it scary or intimidating to message strangers, or putting yourself out there for a job however get over it, people enjoy talking about themselves on LinkedIn, it is not weird to reach out to a company or an employee, Optimize your profile, your profile much like your resume and cover letter are not stagnant, it adapts with you and changes as you modify it for the job you desire. Nurture your network, much like what Tim advices us, when adding an individual on LinkedIn add a note to your invitation this leaves a positive impact especially given that now in the virtual world it is even more difficult to leave a lasting impact.
A final tip is to follow up, after applying for a job email them or send a message on LinkedIn anywhere in between 2 days to 1 week to simply check in on the process, let them know you are interested about the job and it keeps your name on their mind and at the top of their messages.
In Conclusion:
Overall, I found this workshop very engaging and Madi to be very informative and approachable. I learned a lot of great tips I am eager to take to my LinkedIn profile to build my network and to dive deeper into applying for internships and job opportunities in the future. An important quote I took out of the presentation Madi used was:
"Too many overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are"
(Malcolm Forbes),
This spoke to me as I find that especially on social media we can often get caught up in comparing others successes to our own and feeling as if we are behind others or not as successful, which is not the case, you should focus on your own success metrics so rather than focusing on what you don't have, emphasis what you do and your points of growth.
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