LinkedIn

Create your profile and get connected

• Build a professional, online presence. The professional aspect of LinkedIn means you have to treat it differently from how you post on Facebook, Instagram and other social media.
• You can connect in meaningful ways with alumni and other contacts with whom you have something or someone in common.
• Research companies and career paths to gain info that will help you in your work search, prepare for an interview, and to see your “fit” with the organization.
• Work search: companies may post jobs exclusively on LinkedIn and often people in LinkedIn groups might mention job openings that they have posted or are aware of.
• LinkedIn is used worldwide by professionals, large companies, alumni, students and recent grads (fastest growing group).
• You will learn lifelong networking skills by connecting with others.

Check out LinkedIn’s guide on Creating a Good LinkedIn Profile for tips and videos.

Key Points

• Add a professional-looking photo of only you
  • The Summary should be concise, and reflective of who you are professionally including your past experiences, what you are up to now and future goals. It is common to show your personality and passions in this section. Have fun with it!
• Include degree, courses, awards, certifications
• Showing what groups you belong to indicates that you want to engage in professional communities
• Use the “media” feature to add examples of your writing, design work, or other accomplishments

Tip for Settings

To ensure your connections are not plagued by constant notifications while you are creating or making multiple changes to you profile, make sure to turn your sharing notifications off.

• Go to your account's settings, then the privacy tab.
• Once on the privacy page, scroll down until you see the "Share job changes, education changes, and work anniversaries from profile" item. Click on the item and set the option to "No".
• Now you will be able to make changes to your profile without sending irritating notifications to all your connections.

It’s not enough to just create a profile and let it sit -- you need to develop your professional network by connecting with the people you already know and building your network from there.

• One way to make connections is to find alumni who are working in your target field or company, and connect with them.
  • To view Trent alumni on LinkedIn, enter “Trent University” in the LinkedIn search bar. Once on Trent’s LinkedIn home page, use the navigation box on the left side of the page that contains tabs about available jobs, ads and Alumni. Click on the “Alumni” option, from where you will then be able to search through the alumni by keywords, locations and other criteria. Search alumni from other universities by using the same process.
  • You can also find people in roles of interest by going to specific company pages and clicking on the “People” tab.
• When contacting people, avoid using the default, generic LinkedIn connection request.
  • Instead, briefly introduce yourself and state why you want to connect, e.g., for general career information or advice. This is not the place to directly ask for a job.
• Join groups that are related to your field of work; check out the groups your connections belong to and join the relevant one.
  • Monitor discussions in the groups for a while before you become an active participant – then join in and make informed contributions to discussions.

Job search involves viewing job postings as well as researching companies and getting information that will lead to a job.

• Use the search function on LinkedIn’s job bank. Try search terms such as “new grad”, “junior”, and “internship” to increase the chances of finding suitable positions.
• Follow companies; find out more about a company that interests you and become familiar with their products, services, upcoming projects, values, mission statement. This info will help you prepare a targeted application and can be incorporated into answers at their job interview.
• Find people who work in the companies you’re interested in and consider asking them for informational interviews.
  • For career information, ask questions such as “What skills are important for a recent graduate wanting to get into this field? What trends do you think are important?”

Your online reputation is based on your activity and what you post about yourself and others online, e.g., tagged photos, blogs, your social networking sites, and forums.

• Most employers check out your online presence and use it as a screening tool when considering you for an interview or job offer. Therefore, you need to manage your digital content, as well as be aware of what others are posting about you.
• Consider having personal accounts separate from professional accounts. Manage your privacy settings and check them often. Google yourself – what comes up? Is it professional?

Print a copy of the LinkedIn tip sheet.