Slides from first attempt at webinar introducing and demo-ing how LinkedIn can be used effectively by both careers professionals and students and graduates. NB: As much of my webinar comprised of demonstrating LinkedIn these slides should only be seen as one part of the webinar.
2. LinkedIn – ‘Facebook for
Professionals’
• Over 120 million members in 200 countries and
as of summer 2011
• Over 6 million in UK
• Not just for experienced professionals (6.5m
students and 9m recent grads)
• BUT only 9% of University of Manchester
students/grads use LinkedIn frequently or
sometimes, compared with 94% for Facebook
(Survey of 747 students/grads, 2010)
3. Ways I use LinkedIn professionally
Some examples:
• ‘Recruited’ alumnus now working at Department for
Work & Pensions for our ‘Careers in Politics’ panel event
• Careers professional in US shared her LinkedIn training
course outline with me (through LinkedIn’s Careers
Professionals Group)
• Joined ‘Go-Social’ LinkedIn group and attended
‘traditional’ networking event in Manchester – made
some useful contacts
• Frequently contacted by employers wanting to advertise
vacancies with us
• Post questions in the AGR LinkedIn group
to get recruiters’ perspectives on different
issues, e.g. video CVs
4. Ways I use LinkedIn
with students
• Exploring job roles – what job titles are there in x and
what organisations do people in x work for
• Researching career trajectories to see how people get
into a desired role
• Identifying organisations to target (by sector or
location)
• Researching organisations – e.g. what sort of people
do they employ, where do they have offices
• Identifying contacts to target for ‘informational
meetings’ or work experience
• Developing contacts for working overseas
• Unlimited potential…
5. Employers – recruiting via
social networks
• 92% of those hiring in 2010 were already
recruiting or planned to recruit via social
networks
• Of this group, 86% used LinkedIn, 60%
used Facebook and 50% used Twitter for
recruiting
Source: Jobvite Social
Recruiting Survey (2010)
6. Employers – checking
candidates’ social media profiles
Q: How do you use online profiles when
reviewing candidates?
• 38% occasionally search for profiles
• 32% always search
• 16.2% do not review profiles at all
• 13.5% review if provided by candidate
Source: Jobvite Social
Recruiting Survey (2010)
9. LinkedIn groups
• Joining groups is important for students to
expand their network of contacts
• Can automatically view most profiles of (and
send message to) people in same group
Groups also useful for us for:
• Asking questions and sharing experiences
(especially the careers professionals and
graduate recruiter groups)
• Sourcing speakers for events
• Promoting Careers Service events, services and
resources etc (e.g. your university’s alumni
group)
10. LinkedIn – useful groups to join
Types of groups include:
• Careers professionals groups
– UK HE Careers Professionals
– Careers Professionals (group managed by LinkedIn)
– AGCAS groups, e.g. AGCAS Careers Education, AGCAS New to
HE Careers?, AGCAS Research Staff, AGCAS International
– Careers Debate
• Graduate recruiter/business groups
– AGR – The leading voice of Graduate Recruiters & Developers
– Graduate Recruiters Network
• Local/regional networking groups
• University alumni groups
• Sector specific groups
• Company alumni groups
11. Tips for joining LinkedIn
groups
• Useful for you to join groups to show students on
your profile
• You can join up to 50 LinkedIn groups
• See if groups are UK specific (no location search
yet but can enter ‘UK’ as a keyword)
• Look for high membership groups
• Change your settings for the group to ‘weekly
digest’ or de-select the Digest email box
12. Most common questions from
students
1. What can I put in my LinkedIn profile as
I’m ‘only a student’?
Example student profile:
www.linkedin.com/in/samuelroutledge
2. How can I make contacts on LinkedIn?
13. How students can contact
people via LinkedIn
• Check if the person has a Twitter profile
(if so, consider making contact via Twitter first)
• Check their contact settings for ‘expertise requests’
• Usual networking rules apply!
• Approach more junior people first, not CEOs
• Ask for advice initially; perhaps an ‘informational
interview’ – can lead to work experience and perhaps
even a job
• There is a word limit for messages to anyone who is not
a direct contact (e.g. group contact) – a short paragraph
• Also consider starting discussion in a relevant group
14. 6 of my favourite things
about LinkedIn
1. You can often see who your 2nd and 3rd degree
contacts are
2. You don’t have to already know people to start building
your network on LinkedIn
3. You can keep in touch with people even when they
change jobs (or we can keep in touch with students
after guidance appointments and see what they do
when they graduate…)
4. There’s no blurring of personal and professional – it’s
ALL professional
5. You can dip in and out of it as you need to
(but the more you put in, the more you get out)
6. Is it 6 degrees of separation, or just 3…?
15. In summary… to get started
with LinkedIn
• Complete your own profile as fully as possible
• Join some relevant groups (can join up to 50)
• Join in some group discussions
• Find some of your own students or recent
graduates on LinkedIn as examples
• In my experience, students need to be shown
how to search LinkedIn for contacts,
organisations etc (so it helps to be familiar with it
yourself first)
16. LinkedIn – useful links
• Refer students and graduates to:
http://grads.linkedin.com (5 useful short ‘getting
started’ videos)
• Example student profile:
www.linkedin.com/in/samuelroutledge
• LinkedIn’s free training webinars for careers
professionals. Next one: 14 December 6-7pm
http://careerservices.linkedin.com/webinar
17. Supporting students in social
media at Manchester
• Presentations – on ‘Online job hunting and networking’
in careers talks programme and careers modules
• Interactive LinkedIn and Twitter lab sessions, e.g.
LinkedIn lab for Indian students
• Guidance appointments – frequently discuss and demo
social media (in about 70% of appointments)
• Example student LinkedIn profile – Samuel Routledge
• ‘How to’ demo videos online - Developing screencasts
to show how to use LinkedIn, Twitter etc for website
• Social media profile checking – the
future? Will it form part of our mainstream
quick query service
18. Contact
Helen Buzdugan
Careers Consultant, with special responsibility for web and
interactive technologies)
MLP, Careers & Employability Division
University of Manchester, UK
• Email: helen.buzdugan@manchester.ac.uk
• Phone: +44 161 275 2828 (careers switchboard)
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/helenbuzdugan
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/helenbuz
• Slides available at: www.slideshare.com/helenpownall
