Presentation to the ASU H.H. Humphrey International Fellows at the Cronkite School of Mass Media and Communication, Phoenix, AZ, February 28, 2014.

1. Creating & Optimizing
your
LinkedIn Presence
Carl B. Forkner, Ph.D.

2. Agenda
• Creating your Account
• 6 Critical Components
• Maintaining your Presence
• What Next?
• …and free materials to help you succeed…

3. Creating your Account
• www.linkedin.com
• What you need:
• E-mail address
• Create a password
• Yes, it is that easy!

4. Six Critical Components
• Name, Headline, Industry, & Location
• Professional Photograph
• Summary
• Current & Previous Work Experience
• Education & Skills
• Connections (50+)

5. Name, Headline, Industry, & Location
• Proper Name
• NO Nicknames
• Include important designations
• Headline
• 10-12 words describing who you are and what you
offer to prospective employers
• NOT your current position
• The Primary Industry for your Expertise
• Geographic Location
• City, State …or… City/Province, Country

6. Name, Headline, Location & Industry
Howard Yost
Managing your Supply Chain • Supporting your Customer •
Profiting your Business
Chandler, Arizona | Semiconductors
Carl Forkner, Ph.D.
Inspirational Leader • Motivational Educator & Mentor •
Building Successful Teams
Mesa, Arizona | Higher Education

7. Professional Photograph
YES
NO
FREE Professional photographs available weekly at Career Connectors!
Event schedule: www.careerconnectors.org

8. Summary
You have 30 seconds to sell yourself!
1. 2 lines stating:
• Who you are (professionally)
• What you are pursuing (if seeking work)
• …in what industry
• …in what geographic location
2. 30-second “elevator talk”
3. List of “Specialties” or “Expertise”
4. Contact information
5. Copyright statement

9. Summary
**EXPERIENCED LEADER AND EDUCATOR pursuing position in education & training,
corporate, or government leadership in the Phoenix, AZ area**
AWARD-WINNING PROFESSIONAL with over 20 years of leadership, research, and
educational experience in K-12, undergraduate, graduate university, and government
programs. Experienced research analyst and author.
Enhanced productivity concurrent with resource and cost savings are hallmarks of success
in leadership and education. My career is replete with experience leading organizations to
success through innovative strategic planning and providing environments where personnel
may thrive, learn, and advance. My passion is leadership, education, and training that
enhances institution and personnel accomplishment.
Specialties: Education Administration; Academic Affairs; Education and Training Leadership;
Strategic Organizational Leadership; Research and Analysis; International Affairs; Culture &
Language; Logistics & Supply Management; National Security Affairs; Information
Operations; Intelligence.
e-mail: carl.forkner@gmail.com
Twitter: @carlforkner
Profile copyright 2013.
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10. Experience
• Position Title
• Company/Organization Name
• Period of Employment/Service
• 1-2 lines describing the company
• Not required if company has a LinkedIn profile
• 1-4 lines describing your duties
• 2-4 bulletized lines describing your
accomplishments
• Request recommendations (discussed later)

11. Experience
Director
Air War College
July 2007 – August 2011 (4 years 2 months)Montgomery, AL
Air University is the Intellectual and Leadership Center of the Air Force with about 1300
students each year. Air War College is the foremost college for air, space, and cyberspace
education and thought, with about 250 students annually.
Directed a cooperative culture and language education program between 4 higher education
schools, serving approximately 750 graduate students and community members, including
home-schooled students receiving secondary education credits for the classes. The program
included cultural presentations and Q&A sessions with external speakers who bring regional
expertise to the university.
+ Pioneered Air University use of social media to provide information and "push" updates for
scheduling and program offerings to constituents.
+ Developed new process for instructional materials resulting in syllabus-specific materials
that enhanced learning while reducing materials cost by 75% by establishing a new publishing
partnership.
1 recommendation

12. Education & Skills
• Education
• Highest Degree First
• Reverse Chronological Order (newest first)
• What sets your education apart as unique?
• “Skills & Expertise”
• Pick those that represent your marketable skills
• Used by recruiters & HR as searchable keywords
• Push to bottom of profile

13. Education
University of Phoenix
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Higher Education Administration
2009 – 2013
Dissertation: "Writing Assessment as a Predictor of Performance in an Executive
Graduate Degree Program.“
Activities and Societies: Cohort writing coach.
Western Illinois University
Master of Science in Education (M.S.Ed.), Special Education; Education Administration
Thesis: "Disproportionate Placement of Black Students in Special Education Classes in
the Illinois Public Schools“
Activities and Societies: Graduate Teaching Assistant in Assessment and Evaluation;
Phi Delta Kappa
NOTE: No date (>20 years ago)

14. Certifications
• Certifications that would be recognized
either nationally or within your field
Human Subject Research Ethics
Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) Office of Research Education,
License 6604711 (10/2011), 9782480 (02/2013)
October 2011 – Present
Standard Special Teaching (Preschool to age 21)
State Teacher Certification Board - State of Illinois, License 1196299, 1834978
September 1983 – June 2016
Federal Equal Opportunity Program Administration
United States Department of Defense
May 1994 – November 2011

15. Skills & Endorsements
• Select from the list of available skills
• Start with your most important “Top Ten”
• Once you have skills posted, others may
endorse you for those skills
• Remember to endorse others, but only for
skills you know they possess
• “80/20” Rule…
• This should be the LAST section at the
bottom of your editable profile!
• The main purpose is providing keywords for
electronic searches by Recruiters and HR

16. Connections
• Build your connections by:
• Searching for professionals you know personally
• Searching your connections’ connections
• Build at least 50 connections to be an “All Star”
• Be careful with connections…
• If someone you do not know asks to connect:
• View their profile
• See if they are connected to your connections
• If not, are they in your career field?

17. Does Anything Else Matter?
• Absolutely, YES!
• Recommendations
• Volunteer Experience
• Honors and Awards
• Being a Fulbright Fellow is an honor!
• Languages
• Publications
• Projects
• Groups

18. Recommendations
• You should try to get at least 2, and up to 6,
recommendations for each position listed under
“Experience” in the last 20 years.
• Best method:
• Request recommendations from another LinkedIn
colleague. They can enter using the LinkedIn
recommendations system.
• Give them something to work with! Tell them what
accomplishment(s) you would like them to write a
recommendation about.
• 30-40% of people will respond if you give them a hint…
• 10-15% will respond if you give them a “blank sheet of paper.”

19. Recommendations
• What if the person is not on LinkedIn?
• You can ask the person to send you a signed
letter of recommendation.
• Scan the letter
• Post it under the position as media

20. Recommendation
Dan Henk
Director, Air Force Culture and Language Center at United States Air Force
Carl is a visionary leader and manager and extraordinarily hard worker. Over the course
of three years, he developed and implemented an innovative new program for military
language learning in the two senior Air Force professional military education colleges.
This required the coordination of multiple agencies and the interpersonal skills to
convince educational administrators to accept significant change. The program itself was
notable for its high quality and highly positive rating by students. Carl accomplished all
this while maintaining a full-time teaching position in strategy and warfighting - a
remarkable achievement.less
January 31, 2011, Dan worked with Carl at Air War College
Director
Air War College

21. Volunteer Experience
• Volunteering in the community, within your
school, etc.
• Viewed as positive engagement activities
• LinkedIn will not automatically put them in
reverse chronological order
• Use the black arrows in your edit screen to move
them into the order desired.

22. Honors & Awards
• Should be recognizable or easily explained
• Career, academic, and volunteer honors and
awards may all be mentioned here
• If you have numerous awards, pick the most
important or those representative of each
area (career, academic, volunteer)
• Listing too many awards may make you look
boastful…

23. Languages
• What is the most frequent mistake?
• People forget to list their native language!
• Identify what level of proficiency you have
for each language

24. Publications
• Have you written:
• An op-ed piece for a newspaper?
• An article?
• Trade Publication?
• A book?
• Or even…a Blog?
• You can include these on your profile!
• For academia and the hard sciences, this is
important…

25. Publications
• Academic publication:
• Article:
Disproportionate Placement of Minority Students in Special Education Classes
in the Illinois Public Schools
Western Illinois University
August 1984
Master's thesis examined the perceived problem of disproportionate placement of minority
students in special education classes, studying issues of race and economic disadvantage as
discriminators.
Influence without Fanfare: Pestalozzi’s Enduring Contributions to Education
Insights to a Changing World, 2013(2)
June 2013
Abstract: Derived from the Greek word for work and encouraging people to seek out processes
and accomplish tasks that best work to achieve desired goals, pragmatism is an important
philosophical influence in modern education, tracing back to British, European, and ancient Greek
philosophical traditions. One of the most prominent pragmatic philosophers of the eighteenth
century was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose emphasis on naturalism affected other educators,
among them Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. This article presents a review of Pestalozzi’s life,
philosophy, innovations, and the influence of Pestalozzian thought on other educators and
philosophers—his enduring contribution to education.

26. Projects
• Do you have any projects currently in work?
• Academic papers?
• Dissertation or Thesis
• Research Study?
• Book?
• Civic Project?

27. Groups
• Select groups that align with your career
field and interests
• A good start is 10 groups
• Try to be active in your groups
• Give, don’t just receive
• Post group-specific updates within the
group section when appropriate

28. Now What?
• Choose what you want the public to see…
• Don’t give away everything to non-connections
• Update regularly…
• You need to post an update (like “Status” on
Facebook, only professional) at least once a
week!
• Your update shows up on the news feeds of your
connections and groups
• If you do not post an update at least once a week on
LinkedIn, you are essentially invisible…

29. What to do with Connections
• The real value in connections is access to the
2nd level connections
• Use your 1st level connections to lead you to others
in your industry
• Use your online connection to develop a
relationship that results in a face-to-face
meeting
• “Can I meet with you and buy you a cup of
coffee/tea/etc. and talk about _____?”
• Personal connections are the goal of networking
(whenever possible & practical)

30. What We Learned
• Establishing an Account
• Formatting the Fields
• Optimizing your Profile
• A Living Document
• Going Beyond the Computer Screen
• Getting Results

31. Don’t Forget your CD!
1. Templates (Headline, Summary, Experience formats)
2. LinkedIn Like an All Star in 6 Easy Steps, in about an Hour!
3. Ten Tips on Building a Strong Profile
4. 17 Must-Haves for your LinkedIn Profile
5. LinkedIn: What to Include in your Work History
6. 6 Ways to Attract Recruiters to your LinkedIn Profile
7. Top Tips for Putting your LinkedIn Profile to Work (when you
already have a job)
8. LinkedIn Finally lets you Block other Members
9. What Makes a LinkedIn Profile Powerful?

32. Questions?

33. Creating & Optimizing
your
LinkedIn Presence
Carl B. Forkner, Ph.D.