1. The Headshot
Your headshot does not have to be the classic canon shot from the career fair. Some of the best headshots I have seen on LinkedIn were unique pictures that have been zoomed in. Your headshot should make you look tidy, be bright in color, but shouldn’t be too busy. Try to keep your outfit to a basic color.
2. Your LinkedIn Banner
The LinkedIn Banner should be a description of you in a picture. On a team? Great! Include an action or team shot, employers love to see proactive student-athletes. If you don’t have a picture that sums up all your great qualities, make one! You can use canva as a free resource to make a LinkedIn Banner.
3. Connections
A friend of mine recently texted me, “is it okay if I connect with you on LinkedIn?” Is it okay? It’s more than okay! She is a close friend of mine from high school so I told her after she connected with me to go through my connections and connect with any alumna or current students at the high school. It is something that can take a few minutes and build a much wider network.
4. Post Daily!
You helped coordinate a big event on campus that involved the outside community? Post! You had to attend a conference for an extracurricular or a class? Post! You were inducted into an honor society? Post! You went on a Manhattan College L.O.V.E trip? Post! The purpose of LinkedIn is for connections and employers to build a relationship with you that goes beyond the resume and cover letter. If you consistently post, they will see those posts and think like they know you. It is like in today’s world when you “know” someone because of Instagram but have never actually had a conversation with them.
5. The Internship Search
Searching for an internship can be daunting, especially when you are only applying to large-name companies because they’re the first to come to mind. This can seem like a dark hole of constant applications with no response. I found a productive method of looking through my college alumni who currently have the job I hope to achieve. I then stalk their profile to see what internships they held throughout their academic careers, and apply to those smaller name companies I otherwise would not have known of! If I cannot find any internship postings on their website or LinkedIn, I find their Human Resources email and send them a courteous email introducing myself and explaining what I am in search of. I then attach an updated copy of my resume (always in PDF) and a cover letter. My fastest and most optimistic responses from companies have been from personal emails like these!
6. Skills & Endorsements
You can have self doubts in your qualifications for the workplace, especially if you have yet to hold a professional position. I have been a live-in caretaker for children and infants since I was 12 years old, so on my LinkedIn I have childcare as an interpersonal skill. I also love photography and have photographed college theatrical events, sorority events, senior headshots, and so forth. This may be a hobby of mine, but it is also an option to add as industrial knowledge on LinkedIn. You just have to pick your own brain until you realize how your high school jobs and current talents apply to your jobsearch. After you do this, don’t forget to ask your friend to endorse your skills on LinkedIn! It’s a great way to add to your profile and does not take more than 10 seconds.
7. Accomplishments
Accomplishments subdivides into numerous categories: Publication, Patent, Course, Project, Honor and Award, Test Score, Language, and Organization. This can seem overwhelming at first, but the typical college student is part of numerous national organizations whether it’s Her Campus, a sorority, Society of Women Engineers, honor societies and so forth. People typically get scholarship awards for college and forget to add them, write them in as well!
8. The URL
The computerized links that LinkedIn makes for you are typically long, annoying, and tedious to copy and paste onto a resume or cover letter. You just have to go to the top right corner of your LinkedIn page and press edit URL, then make a simple and clean URL for your page!