How to Use LinkedIn As a Student-- And Nail That Dream Job

Students, this one is for you! We hear regularly about how many people struggle to find new jobs, and this is particularly true for students upon graduation. It is common advice in university career offices for students to set up LinkedIn profiles to be more visible for potential employers in an effort to boost the job hunt.

LinkedIn, however, can be so much more than that.

When students properly leverage LinkedIn, I find that it can be a fantastic tool for finding that dream job.

Use Alumni Plugin

LinkedIn offers they awesome Alumni Tool plugin that I find is regularly overlooked, but its potential is incredible.Students and professionals can use the plugin in a variety of different ways. For example, you can search by university and see the fields and locations where alumni have ended up working. This can help guide decisions about the best universities to attend to prepare yourself for your desired field.

You can also go to your alumni page and find alumni from your school who work in your desired field and region. Reviewing their LinkedIn profiles can give you excellent insight into the paths these professionals took from the time they graduated from your school to get that dream job. This can help you plot your own path and make decisions about how to build up your own resume to prepare for job application time.

Follow Desired Companies

There are more than 3 million companies with profiles on LinkedIn, and they represent a wide range of industries, so you can definitely find your desired company or a few just like it. As a student, it might be years before you are ready to apply at the company, but now is the time to start learning about them.

“Active participation on LinkedIn is the best way to say, ‘Look at me!’ without saying ‘Look at me!”
― Bobby Darnell

Follow your favorite companies on LinkedIn and interact with their brands. Read the content published by the company itself as well as by company representatives. Interact with the content by liking, sharing, and commenting. Not only can this help you begin to form a relationship with the brand, but it will begin to give you valuable insight into the thoughts and messages of the company. You will learn about the brand’s priorities, beliefs and strategies, which can be excellent as you begin to build your resume for that dream job.

Network With Alumni 

With more than 300 million users, chances are there are plenty of alumni from your school on LinkedIn! After you have spent sometime following your school and using the alumni tool, you will begin to find a few people that have followed the career path that you want to emulate, so reach out to them.

Let them know that you admire what they have done with their career and you are looking to connect and learn from them. Make sure your message follows these guidelines:

• do not ask directly for a job or a favor, you want to build a connection first
• make sure the note is personal so that the recipient knows it was not just blasted to everyone
• use language that is professional and courteous & DO NOT STALK!

Finding a job can be an enormous challenge for today’s graduates. We regularly speak about how LinkedIn can connect brands to clients across the country and around the world, but that same value applies to students. Emerging professionals looking to break into their desired industry should consider all that this platform has to offer them– they might be surprised with what they are capable of accomplishing.

• Did you use LinkedIn when trying to find a new job?
• Have you ever recommended the platform to the students in your life?

Thank you for reading,
Jerome Knyszewski

For full article and more content, visit:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-use-linkedin-student-nail-dream-job-jerome-knyszewski