LinkedIn is a professional networking site that can help college students market themselves, find jobs, and connect with professionals in their field. Students should focus on the field they are studying, brainstorm potential career goals, and develop a target audience of potential employers when setting up their profile. They should optimize their profile by including a professional photo and summary, listing experiences and education, and asking for recommendations to showcase their qualifications and character. Developing a professional online presence and network through meaningful participation in LinkedIn groups and connections can help students transition successfully from college to their career.

1. LinkedIn for College Students
Charles Garrett
Charles.Garrett.Linkedin@gmail.com

2. What is Linkedin?
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over
120 million members and growing rapidly.
LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you
exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader
network of professionals.

3. How Can it Benefit Me?
Linkedin provides you with the opportunity to market yourself
online for FREE.
Helps you to keep your online presence professional.
Help you to find jobs when you graduate.
Meet professionals in your field of interest.

4. Before You Set Up a Profile…
Focus in on what field you are studying.
(IT, Nursing, Business, and etc.)
Brainstorm what kind of job you would want when you
graduate, what industry, and the geographical location of where
you want to work.
Ensure to develop a “target audience”.
A “target audience” consists of titles of people with ability to
hire you and companies you would like to work for.

5. Create Your Account!
Visit http://www.linkedin.com
Fill out your current information that includes work
history, education, and other extracurricular
activities such as clubs and organizations.
Ensure that you provide a professional picture like
the one provided to the right .
Ensure that you create a vanity URL like this one.
www.linkedin.com/in/YOURNAMEHERE

6. A Few Things to Remember….
Make sure you use as many keywords for your specific field. This
will help with search engine optimization (SEO). Keeps you on
the top of the list in search results.
Linkedin is about quality and quantity with contacts and
connections.
Linkedin is not a single solution to professional development and
is not a replacement for an actual resume.

7. Optimize Your Profile: Headline
Think of your headline as an “elevator pitch” a way to sell
yourself to prospective recruiters.
Ensure that is something really do. It can be derived from
extracurricular activities like student organizations or
nonprofit volunteer opportunities.
Ex. Helping nonprofits to educate the local community
about digital citizenship and identity theft prevention.

8. Optimize Your Profile: Headline Part
Two
Realize you have a 150 character limit. Like Twitter, you have to
be creative.
Make sure to update it from time to time to keep it fresh.
Make sure it flows seamlessly with the rest with your summary
and other information that you add to your profile.

9. Optimizing Your Profile: Summary
Your summary is spaced used for you to describe who you are
“professionally”, what you do “professionally” and what you
have done “professionally”. In our case this is our studies and
activities we participated in while studying.
Make sure the first sentence has punch.
I live in breath using technology as a tool to create efficiencies
and increase productivity.
Use keywords as much as possible.

10. Optimizing Your Profile: Summary
Cont’d
Ensure that your summary is free of grammatical and spelling
errors.
Write it as if you were writing a cover letter for a job application.
Ensure your profile tells your “target audience”: who you
are, what you have done, and your goals are for the future.
Use examples from other Linkedin profiles or advice from Blue
Sky Resumes.

11. Optimizing Your Profile: Experience &
Education
List your experiences in chronological order.
Make sure are clear about what you did and present it as if you
were marketing yourself. QUANTIFY!!!!
Ex. created professional development opportunities for students
that raised student involvement by 50%.
Even if it does not relate to your field put your volunteer
experience down. It shows your character!

12. Optimizing Your Profile: Applications
Make sure to use appropriate applications that
will help you to market yourself to potential
employers.
Box.net is a internet based program that will let
you store files that can be viewed publically.
Add a professional twitter account so you can
update your followers on what you are doing
“professionally”.
Add a WordPress blog to blog about your
career field and your “professional
experiences”.

13. Optimizing Your Profile:
Recommendations
Make sure keep positive professional relationships with your
professors and other professionals throughout your collegiate
endeavors.
Ask for recommendations as you come closer to graduation.
Make sure to diversify them. A few professors, professionals out
in the field, nonprofit professionals, and etc.
Make sure they really know you and can vouch for your work
ethic and or character. Ask them to talk about a particular
project or aspect of your character that will help to market
yourself.

14. Developing a Professional Network
The best and easiest way to meet people on LinkedIn is to
provide meaningful and thoughtful posts in Linkedin Groups.
There are hundreds of groups for any career field.
Ask appropriate and relevant questions.
If you are looking for a job, be tactful and not broadcast it to the
world.
Connections can be your ticket to where the jobs are when you
are transitioning from collegiate to corporate.

15. Rules of the Linkedin Road.
Make sure you do not randomly connect with people you do not
know. You will be banded if keep trying to connect with people
you do not know.
Have connections come to you.
Have your contacts introduce you to their set of contacts “2nd
degree”.
REMEBER QUALITY OVER QUANITITY.

16. Insight From a Linkedin Networker
Realize that professionals are busy and may or may not respond
to you in what you define a timely manner. They also can
sometimes be bombarded random requests.
Try to give more than ask.
Remember Linkedin is a marketing tool. Become friends with
marketing majors.
The best way to network is to talk to people in your chosen
career field in the specific geographical area you want to work
in.

17. Other Suggestions/Insights
If someone does something for you add the “personal touch” by
sending them a thank you card. It speaks a lot in the online
world we live in. People will bend over backwards for you
sometimes.
Also, if you are not a good “sales writer” you can ask help from
your friends. Make sure that it is still you and who you are.
When you become a senior make business cards and do not put
STUDENT on them BE CREATIVE!

18. Questions?