Navigating LinkedIn as a Young Professional
As a young professional, it can seem daunting to develop your profile on websites such as LinkedIn and Handshake. Often we're told that these platforms are integral to being successful at establishing business connections. However, many students lack the knowledge to properly utilize these platforms and miss out on all the potential benefits.
When building your profile, it's imperative to thoroughly include all professional work, extra-curricular, and community service positions. Unlike your resume that has limited space to convey your experience, LinkedIn and Handshake have the capacity for you to include specificities otherwise overlooked in your resume. You can attach:
Visuals of work
Provide hyper-links
Recruiters will often ask for both your resume and LinkedIn profiles for such reasons.
Adding and maintaining connections is also a beneficial aspect of these platforms. Not only should you connect with bosses and co-workers, but you should also be reaching out to non-traditional connections such as classmates, professors, sorority/fraternity alums, and alumni of any extra-curricular or community organization. Often past professors prove to be beneficial when needing recommendations or a point of contact. LinkedIn and Handshake will add jobs into the algorithm based on commonalities in your established connections. A multitude of people received their first jobs by merely being connected through these means.
Lastly, you should implement the 5-5-5 method to ensure that you're getting the most out of your time on these platforms. Typically you should spend a minimum of five minutes – five days a week interacting with the platform. During this allotted time you should complete a variety of five tasks which consist of:
Making new connections
Interacting with established connections
Sharing articles
Adding experience to your profile
A well built out profile is not only appealing to potential recruiters and interviewers, as it makes you seem as you are a well-rounded and serious candidate, but also allows you to never miss out on potential opportunities.