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LinkedIn LinkedIn Engagement LinkedIn Network LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn for College Students & Recent Grads

I produced 4 YouTube videos for college students and recent grads.

In this series I discuss the importance of using LinkedIn in their college and career journey.

I then gave lots of best practices related to building a LinkedIn Profile, a relevant and meaningful LinkedIn Network, and building their brand through LinkedIn engagement.

Here are the 4 videos in this series. Please share this with any college students you know who could benefit from these ideas.


Please comment your questions on any of these videos and I will answer all of the questions I receive.

Teddy

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LinkedIn LinkedIn Profile

Tell the relevant stories thru your LinkedIn Profile

A LinkedIn Profile has numerous predefined areas for us to populate with information that tells our target audience who we are, what we have done, and what we do today.

However, not everything we have done or do easily fits into these predefined sections of LinkedIn Profile.

Here are a few examples to consider:

  • Tutoring – often we think of this as a form of education. But sometimes this could be  work. If you tutored someone else for more than a week or two, maybe you want add it as an experience entry. Include the improvement the person you tutored achieved from their work with you. This could be seen as a training skill to some business owners and hiring managers.
  • Family Home Care – I hear of this as a distraction to many from the typical career achievements. However, this could be an experience entry where you show your project management skills, budgeting, time management, mentoring, organization skills, etc. Look deeply into the work did and think beyond family home care.
  • At Home Schooling –  Many of those who have provided this service their students did not look at it much beyond the title.  Again, consider PM skills, organization, training, mentoring, scheduling, etc. etc.
  • Running a ‘Side Hustle’ or at home business – I know lots of people who have Ebay, Etsy, Facebook Market Place, Craigs List, small sign businesses, niche photography businesses, even people who purchase abandoned storage units and resell the contents. The skills used to do these jobs can be very useful to hiring managers, if you can present the skills you used and developed while doing this work.

When looking at your experiences consider, what skills did you use in these experiences?

Often you have to dig deep and look at the experiences differently than you are inclined to do.

All of the experiences we have play a role in our professional development in ways we never imagined. Tell these stories on your LinkedIn Profile, where relevant and useful to build your brand.

  • Look at your volunteer activities in different ways.
  • Look at the courses you have taken over the years, in different ways.
  • Do the same for your overall education experiences, publications you have written, certifications you have achieved, the people you have worked with, and on, and on.

Being able to tell the relevant stories as best as you can often positions you as a better resource or candidate than the others.

/Teddy

Categories
LinkedIn

I don’t see the value of using LinkedIn

I hear this phrase often; “I do not see the benefits of LinkedIn.”

Often they include statements like these;

  • ‘I’ve been on LinkedIn for years.’
  • ‘All of my employees are on LinkedIn.’
  • ‘We have a company page on LinkedIn.’
  • ‘I have a big network of at least 200 people.’
  • ‘I accept every invite I get.’

For those who say they do not see value using LinkedIn, I never hear about their strategy or execution.

Recently I researched two companies on LinkedIn.

The first company focused on executive staffing, primarily for B2B companies, has 10 employees on LinkedIn.

Between all of the employees, there are nearly 17,000 connections.
The company page has about 1,900 followers.

Yet, the company page has no new content focused on their target audience.
The employees have no content or public engagement with their target audience.
Most of the employee’s LinkedIn Profiles are only basic.
Some of the profiles are even less than basic.

I am sure LinkedIn is not creating value for this company.

The second company I researched is a financial services company primarily serving B2C companies.

They have 9 employees listed on LinkedIn.
They don’t have a verified LinkedIn Company Page.
Their page is one of those created by LinkedIn years ago and has no useful information available to their target audience.

The employees, including the President, VP of Operations, VP of sales, and all of the salespeople have less than basic LinkedIn Profiles. None of the employees have any content or public engagement with their target audience.

I am not surprised that the leaders of this organization feel LinkedIn is of no value to their business at all.

LinkedIn is a business tool. You can’t get value from a business tool that is not being used appropriately. These business tools require a strategy and appropriate execution within relevant business processes.

Otherwise, the value of LinkedIn will be lackluster at best.

Does your business have a strategy for using LinkedIn as a business tool?

Do your employees invest time using LinkedIn with purpose focused on the business goals?

/Teddy

If you want to discover better wayst for your team to use LinkedIn as a business tool, let’s talk – (336) 283-6121

Categories
LinkedIn

Be accessible through LinkedIn

“Being accessible through LinkedIn is as important as being discovered on LinkedIn, being perceived as an authority in your space and becoming trusted through your content on LinkedIn.” @TLBurriss

Categories
LinkedIn Social Media

Social Onboarding your Business Development team

I am excited to see organizations do deliberate and organized onboarding of their new hires. Preparing these employees from the start to be successful in their role helps to produce more successful and productive employees who generally want to stay around longer.