Even though it’s impossible to know everything about Linkedin in a single blog post, we will keep improving and improvising this blog as per student needs.
My first and foremost question to you, ARE YOU ON LINKEDIN?
If your answer is yes! Awesome read on! But if it’s NO, STOP right here, make an account and come back.
Linkedin is an essential component of job search in the US. Almost all the jobs that students are being offered these days are in some way through LinkedIn.
You get connected to students working with companies, a student who studied in your University, recruiters for whom you can build an excellent profile, keep a count on the number of people visiting your profile, who they are, and many other factors.
Reid Hoffman co-founded Linkedin in 2002; he has a great podcast called Masters of Scale, which you should check out.
Hoffman believes that many people still do not know how to use its services, and it is LinkedIn’s job to help them out.
🗣️In an interview, Hoffman said that “you have to think proactively about how to use a tool that enables your ability to move in ways that you weren’t able to move before, and most of the people are not very good at that.”
If I’m sincere, even we are still exploring the platform. My minor complaint with Linkedin is that the platform is becoming more like Facebook for professionals since people spend so much time on the site.
Let’s break the blog into pieces. You can directly jump to any of it as you feel comfortable.
We will be talking about your:
- Linkedin Profile
- Job search
- Linkedin Learning
- Connecting with people
LinkedIn Profile
Your LinkedIn profile is not just any other social media profile. It’s something more.
Let’s talk about this orange in the symbol. I have a Linkedin premium. The reason I use it is that I am looking for a full-time position. It gives me insights and access to the main features. This makes me stand out among 100’s of other applicants. When you are on a time crunch, this would surely be of help. If you are still looking for an internship, I would recommend using this for two months. It gives you the benefits of connecting with more people. You can search for more people and get services to other company insights. Now, talking about your profile, the first thing you see is a
- Jobs – the central purpose of you being here. Let me show you a live example of my workflow while looking for a job.
- How to modify the search
- How students from your University might come in handy
- How you should use Hunter to keep track of your jobs
- Linkedin Learning – going on to this point, next time you want to learn a bit about the elevator pitch or get some tips about an interview, go to Learning LinkedIn. There’s a lot of information available here. I know this is only included with the premium version, but every time you consider getting one, make sure to use it. It’s an underrated resource that everyone should put to use. It adds a certification to your LinkedIn profile which oddly feels nice.
Here is how you can benefit from Linkedin, and In my sense, it’s one of the most significant benefits you can have.
For example, let’s say I want to get someone’s contact working at the WSP. It’s one of the biggest construction companies in the world. I go to LinkedIn, check WSP USA, and see if anyone works there or not. Now, I’ll go to WSP construction’s profile on LinkedIn and prevent the people from my college who have previously worked here.
For example, here it shows that these are the names of the people who have worked at WSP and are from Purdue. It will be easier to connect with these people than anyone else. This way, when you are messaging them, their chances of replying to you are higher than the events of anyone else replying.
There was a LinkedIn learning class that I watched, and the best the lady told in that class was that. All the events/ LinkedIn is messaging, rather than asking for a favor or telling them something about you. Try to keep the conversation such that you are building up for the next one.
The goal of these conversations should be to look forward to extending them rather than bugging people for a job. For example, this is a sample message I tend to send people.
Hi, this is Parth Vijayvergiya; I am a graduate student at Purdue University. I want to connect with you on LinkedIn.
Boiler up!
If he is not a fellow Purdue alum, I may relate to an industry or a shared article. This way, they know that I am interested in connecting compared to merely sending out requests. So be careful about that!