Helen Buzdugan provides training on using LinkedIn and Twitter to help students with their careers. The training covers building a LinkedIn profile, researching organizations and contacts, and joining relevant groups. It also discusses using Twitter to follow employers, join conversations, and share blog posts to build a professional network. Students are encouraged to use these tools to research careers and find work experiences. The session concludes with a discussion of questions and tips for using social media in a job search.

1. LinkedIn and Twitter Lab #agcasemid Helen Buzdugan University of Manchester 9 June 2011

2. Ways of using LinkedIn and Twitter with students – helping you to help them! Some ideas from me and hands-on practice Sharing our ideas, experiences and tips as we go along Time for questions! Objectives

3. Where are you on the social media novice to guru scale? I wouldn’t know a tweet from a twit! I know a bit about Twitter and LinkedIn but haven’t really used them much I’ve joined fairly recently and created my profiles and started to try a few things I’ve been using these for a while now and am pretty competent, but feel I could always learn more My colleagues call me the Careers Service’s “social media guru”!

4. Session 1: Lab

5. Ways I use LinkedIn professionally Some recent examples: Careers professional in US shared her ‘LinkedIn lab’ session with me Joined ‘Go-Social’ LinkedIn group and attended ‘traditional’ networking event – made some useful contacts ‘Recruited’ alumnus now working at Department for Work & Pensions for our ‘Careers in Politics’ panel event Was contacted by Canadian careers adviser moving to the UK who wanted advice on getting a job here Was contacted by a law firm wanting to advertise a vacancy with us

6. 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…

7. The LinkedIn profile Elements in your profile: Basic info: title, summary, specialities, experience, education, links to blogs/Twitter/websites etc, honours and awards, interests, personal info., contact settings, Additional info: recommendations, groups, blog feed, Amazon reading list, Slideshare presentations etc Example careers people profiles: www.linkedin.com/in/helenbuzdugan http://www.linkedin.com/in/pcharman

8. 1: Building your LinkedIn profile Work on some of the following, as relevant: Write an appropriate titlee.g. ‘Careers Adviser at the University of X, specialising in supporting international students’ Write a keyword-rich summary and add some specialities Include details of your education and previous employment Consider who you might approach for recommendations Add your Twitter account and a link to your blog or careers service website Set up your ‘public profile’ (i.e. simple web address) NB: You can add a photo later

9. 2: Identifying organisations Scenario A student wants to get some publishing work experience back home in Brighton over the summer and wants help with identifying publishers to target. They’ve tried the usual Google search but not got too far. LinkedIn task Do an advanced company search, using location ‘Brighton’ and sector ‘Publishing’. What would you then suggest students do with this list?

10. 3: Researching organisations Scenario A student has an interview with a PR company called Amaze, and wants to find out more about them. LinkedIn task Do a basic company search for ‘Amaze’. Look especially at ‘insightful statistics’ and profiles of employees. How could you/students use this data? Experiment with searching for other companies. Can you find any big graduate recruiters?

11. 4: Identifying contacts Scenario A student is considering a career in football coaching. You suggest identifying some contacts in your area for ‘informational interviews’ initially. LinkedIn task Do an advanced people search using the keyword ‘football coach’ and select the industry ‘Sports’. Look at the available profiles and see if you can identify any suitable contacts. NB: If you managed to join the sports-related LinkedIn groups as advised prior to the training, you should see a good list of results here.

12. 5: Researching an area of workand career paths Scenario A student is interesting in doing something to do with equality and diversity (or CSR) but doesn’t know what roles exist and what organisations might employ such people. LinkedIn task Do a people search using just the keywords ‘equality and diversity’ or ‘CSR’ and perhaps location ‘UK’ to find UK specific jobs. Look at people’s profiles. What different jobs have they done? Who did they work for? What did they study etc? NB: You might need to join a relevant group to view full job profiles here, but otherwise just look at their basic profile to get an idea.

13. 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 Tips: Useful for you to join groups to show students on your profile 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

14. LinkedIn – useful groups to join Types of groups include: Careers professionals groups Graduate recruiter/business groups Local/regional networking groups University alumni groups Sector specific groups Company alumni groups NB: See handout for some specific groups you might be interested in

15. 6: Joining LinkedIn groups LinkedIn task Do a basic group search and use relevant keywords to search for graduate recruiter groups, sector-specific groups, alumni groups or careers professionals groups to join. If you have time, look at some of the discussions in the groups you are already a member of. NB: You can join up to 50 LinkedIn groups, and groups can be useful 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)

16. Most common questions from students 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?

17. 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

18. 6 of my favourite things about LinkedIn You can see who your 2nd and 3rd degree contacts are You don’t have to already know people to start building your network on LinkedIn 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…) There’s no blurring of personal and professional – it’s ALL professional You can dip in and out of it as you need to (but the more you put in, the more you get out) Is it 6 degrees of separation, or just 3…?

19. 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)

20. 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

21. Session 2: Lab

22. Twitter 200+ million users worldwide (but not all are regular, active users) 155 million tweets per day 50% of users are 18-34 (so students and graduates are a key group) BUT Only 18% of University of Manchester students and grads used Twitter ‘frequently’ or ‘sometimes’ (Survey of 747 students/grads, 2010)

23. Twitter – the basics … Tweeting (use a link shortener like http://tinyurl.com to shorten long web links) Searching Following people Lists, e.g. www.twitter.com/helenbuz/lists/careers-people or www.twitter.com/helenbuz/lists/careers-services Using hashtags (#) e.g. #agcaslab Replies (@) and direct messages (DM) Retweets (RT)

24. Twitter scenario A student is interested in getting into publishing and she is keen to get some work experience and find out more about opportunities. In what ways could she use Twitter to help her?

25. Follow people and organisations that tweet publishing jobs using the Twitter search function for keywords and then by following other people’s lists. You can help your students by setting up lists for different sectors and encouraging students to follow them. E.g. www.twitter.com/helenbuz/publishing-careers Suggestions – part 1

26. Suggestions – part 2 Follow people working in publishing. Observe them for a while and see what sorts of things they tweet about. Re-tweet interesting things and comment on the industry news – try to sound like a “professional in development”. As you start to build up a following, join in conversations. If you have a blog, link to that and your LinkedIn profile, and feed your blog posts onto Twitter so that people following you on Twitter can see examples of your ideas and your writing.

27. Is username appropriate? May be funny, but... Poor spelling - bad impression?

28. Recent tweet Blog

29. *NEW(ish)* Fusing social networking and job search The job search engine Simply Hired (www.simplyhired.co.uk) connects with your Facebook or LinkedIn contacts to show you if you have any contacts (even 2nd or 3rd degree) in organisations advertising vacancies

30. 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