Back to Basics: LinkedIn

Ah, LinkedIn. The twitter of the professional world. Love it or hate it, if you’re open to new work you should probably have a LinkedIn profile. While a lot of “LinkedInFluencers” will have a lot of opinions on some of the finer details of the site, here are some basics to get you started.

Profile Picture: Try to use something as close to a professional headshot as you can manage. A lot of job fairs and networking events will include opportunities for free headshots, but if you don’t have access to one for now, a cellphone picture of you in professional clothing against a blank wall will work just fine.

Headline: Unless you have some snappy catchphrase up your sleeve, a quick summary of your current position will suffice. Ex. “Software Engineer II at Microsoft” or “Mechanical Engineering Student at University of Michigan”

Experiences: List any jobs you’ve held, with a brief description of each. Make sure to include any promotions you had during those experiences.

Education: List all post-highschool (unless you’re in high school, or do not have any post high school education) educational experiences you’ve had. This includes degrees, trade schools, or significant bootcamps or classes.

Projects: List any major extra-curricular, professional, lab related research, or competition projects you’ve participated in.

Skills: List trade skills in which you’re proficient. I really like LinkedIn’s new feature where you can associate skills with professional experiences. To get an idea of what skills you should be listing, search jobs for which you think you’d be qualified, and pull up their skill lists. If there are skills on that list that you have, add them to your profile. An increasing number of recruiters search by skill, so having these in your profile is worth the leg work of getting them in.

Connections: Use LinkedIn to connect with current and former coworkers, professors, classmates, recruiters, and other people in your network. It’s a low-investment way to keep in touch with people.

Other notes:

·        LinedIn is not Tinder, do not use it as a dating service.

·        You don’t need to post regularly for it to be a useful tool. I mainly use mine to be visible to and interact with recruiters, and keep up with old coworkers.

·        If you do post regularly, avoid hot button issues like politics, religion, and your personal hot takes.

·        People can see when you view their profile, LinkedIn stalk your ex at your own risk.

·        Follow companies whose work you admire, or for whom you’d be open to working, to stay current with your industry news.

·        There’s a LOT of professional advice on LinkedIn, not all of it is good.

Do you like LinkedIn as a tool? What do you use it for most regularly? Let me know at YourSTEMMentorBlog@gmail.com !