LinkedIn and the College Student

I was helping a college student with her LinkedIn profile. She asked me if LinkedIn can help college students and of course I answered in the affirmative.  Why not have a leg up on the competition by having a LinkedIn account now rather than after graduation?  You can always update it to reflect your different experiences and skills.  So what did we do?

1.   We created a Summary or Background statement and wrote it in the first person; you know "I" and "My".  In it we showcased the skills that she has grown into as a student and part time employee.  We looked up the skills needed in her chosen (for now at least) professional and worked those into her statement.  For example, if the skills needed in a future job include problem solving and decision making, we used those words to describe some of her characteristics (as long as it's honest). We downloaded her resume here too.

2.   We added more to the Employment section than company name and title.  We completed a quick description of the position responsibilities.  We found some of those words by Goggling the company website. 

3.    We added Skills and Expertise: We added these as they related to the jobs she has had and the jobs she is interested in.  We also added some of her more technical skills such as Microsoft Office.

4.    We Collected Volunteering and Organizations: We added the names of the organizations for which she volunteers and a short description of what she does.

5.   We Searched for Groups:: We looked for groups in her college major, college groups, college internship groups and the college or university LinkedIn page.

6.     We Added Contacts: I showed her how to invite people using real words and not the canned invitation and left that to her.

7.    We Looked for Companies to Follow: I showed her how that worked and let her select those on her own.

      8.  We Selected a Photograph: We selected a professional looking head-shot from her "thousands" of  photos.

That’s it.  It took a couple of hours but at least this young college student can stand apart from the crowd with a professional LinkedIn profile.  It certainly won’t hurt her chances of finding an internship or professional position down the road.