Hi there college students. Welcome home for summer break. Hope your semesters/quarters/trimesters were fruitful and that you learned a lot. So what are you doing with yourselves until next fall? Hanging out? Traveling? Looking for work?
Now is the perfect time to create your professional online persona on LinkedIn. More than just an online resume it is the first place recruiters go to search for talent. Human resource departments are using paper resumes less and less every day. You can keep it updated for those that still request a traditional resume but definitely transfer it to this online portal. This is important because there’s always a chance that an employer will find you online first during a time when they’re not visiting your campus for interviews. So who knows? Its possible that you could even bypass your campus’ career development department for an opportunity.
In addition, your LinkedIn profile gives an overall impression of you as a person, which is really what an employer is hiring. It’s not just your unique talents or the newest academic theories that you can contribute to a company but also your extended knowledge of the world. Remember everything you have ever heard about being a “well rounded person”? This is easily reflected in your activities, organizations, personal interests and the books you read. Can’t fit all of that on a resume but LinkedIn is customized to do that and much more. Not to mention the value of the recommendations that employers, professors and others can leave on your profile.
And speaking of your campus career center more of them are recommending, maybe even requiring you to create a LinkedIn profile. They are the people who deal with human resources professionals around the country and around the world so take their advice and begin editing yours. The summer is the perfect time to do so. This way when you return to campus for the fall term you can schedule a traditional resume and LinkedIn profile review with the career specialists.
So take a couple of weeks early on this summer to work on your profile. Here’s an approach I would suggest.
- Take a few hours each day the first week to begin piecing the basics together. Keep your traditional resume open on your computer and work back and forth between each of them filling in updated information on both.
- Then the second week focus on connecting with as many other LinkedIn profiles as possible. You could grow your connections by the hundreds if you really push it. Connect with me. I’d be happy to share my list with you and give you tips.
- Also during the second week join the maximum of fifty (5o) groups related to your future profession and personal interests. This will expose you to thousands more professionals and you can interact with them directly within those groups and make more connections, etc., etc., etc.
Remember to send me an invitation to connect and reference this blog post. I’d be happy to help in any way that I can.
Whether you have a summer gig or not, take advantage of your time by focusing creating and revising your professional online presence. You’ll reap enormous personal and professional benefits for the effort.
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