How to Rock Your LinkedIn Profile

Get to Know LinkedIn 🤓

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🌐 What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a platform for people to network and connect professionally. It has the potential to create work opportunities. Think of it as Instagram or Snapchat for your resume.

📁 How is LinkedIn different from other social media?

While Snap, Insta, and Facebook might be good for sharing what you ate and watched on TV over the weekend, LinkedIn is for sharing your work-appropriate experiences.

💯 What can you do on LinkedIn?

This is not just a place to post your resume and leave. LinkedIn, if used properly, can help you network, build your brand, and get hired. It can connect you to the professional world, keep you informed about your chosen industry, and move your career forward.

🏫 Why should I get a LinkedIn in high school?

In a dynamic job market, keeping your professional image current is important. Staying on top of your current skills and showing companies that you are up to speed is one way of maintaining your edge in the workforce population.

You can follow the professional journey of other candidates and mentors. This can help you carve out a path of your own or follow in the footsteps of others in your chosen field.

LinkedIn is not just for career professionals! It can also create internship opportunities, mentorship connections, apprenticeships and help you stay in touch with professors, colleagues, and friends.

Get Noticed 😮

🖼️ Choose a Profile Photo

Want 20 times more exposure? Then, upload a photograph of yourself. Make sure that the photo is of you alone, in professional attire, and striking a confident, neutral pose.

📚 Education Section

Make sure you enter all your schools along with any academic achievements, awards, and honors.

💼 Work Experience

• If you have work experience, great! Profiles with work experiences are 10X more likely to be messaged than those who do not.
• All work counts! List any summer jobs, paid internships, part-time jobs, and even freelance work you've done.
• Be specific. Write in dates of employment, titles, and responsibilities if possible. Be clear in your role and attach photos of you at work or links to any projects you took part in.
• If you have never worked, be sure to add any unpaid work that you may have done in school or any leadership positions held in extracurricular activities.

💝 Volunteer Experience

• Volunteer services are your signature to an otherwise sterile listing of your work experience. It shows where your heart is.
• Hiring managers are interested in figuring you out as a person, so be sure to add any service you may have done, so people know what is important to you.

🤹 Add Skills and Ask for Endorsements

• If you have FIVE or more skills, you could gain 17x more views than those who do not.
• Add relevant skills which you have gained through your academic or work experiences. When a manager looks through your profile, they should see a consistent story between your experiences and your skill.
• Ask for endorsements or recommendations from previous co-workers and/or supervisors and link these directly into your profile.

✍️ Draft a Summary

Your summary is your first impression. Use these precious 100 words to summarize yourself and make your potential shine through. Since this is the first part most people will see first, you want to be concise and pull the reader in.

Launch Your Career 🚀

👥 Use the Alumni Tool

• Reach out to the Alumni of schools you're interested in or a company you may be interested in working for. LinkedIn networking is beneficial to obtain advice and mentorship.
• Not sure how to reach out? Just ask to connect over LinkedIn with a brief explanation of why you're interested in connecting and how they may be able to help you. Don't spam generic messages but personalize them so that your outreach is successful.

🤝 Browse Job Descriptions

• You may not need a job just yet, but this is a great way to start getting an idea of what to expect in your fields of interest.
• Having a broad network over LinkedIn may help you connect through a mutual third party that you didn't even know you had in common.

🤩 The Power of Search Bar

Use this powerful tool to find new jobs and be notified immediately when a new opening becomes available.

Additional Tips and Tricks 🌟

• Show that you are open to work by clicking on the "Add Profile" selection > "Intro" and use that to specify your job preferences.
• Feature content! Link to project pages, company websites, or newspaper articles that feature you. Use this space to highlight any previous work that may be online.
• Be sure also to give out endorsements and recommendations to others. This is a great way to broaden your professional network.

FAQ's❓

👥 Should I connect with everyone who sends me a request?

• Quality, not quantity! Connect only with people who are interested in the same potential career paths as you or if you have mutual interests or backgrounds.
• Use personal judgment. If someone or some company does not sound legit, chances are they aren't.
• This is not a game of collecting "friends" or "likes." Remember to keep your LinkedIn space professional and relevant.

💬 When I'm reaching out to someone, and I want to include a personal message, what should that look like?

• Make it personal, but keep it professional. Introduce yourself and why you chose to message them. It could be about a mutual connection if you heard them speaking or read an article they have written, which sparked your interest.
• Keep it brief and request them to accept your connection.

🕵️ How can I limit the information others see about me?

• You can choose how much information you can go to random strangers and varying degrees of connection.
• Use the settings under "Visibility" to make your profile and contact information visible to only those who you want.
• If you choose to be "Anonymous," remember that you will also lose the ability to see other people's profiles.

👉 Throughout February, Fiveable held career exploration events. To wrap up the month, Allison Sims, the Lead Customer Manager at LinkedIn, came to speak to Fiveable students about making their LinkedIn profile the best it can be.

👉 This blog was written on March 7th, 2021, by Sabeen Safi. The event took place on February 26th, 2021.

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