Event Alert: How to create a Linkedin profile!

Event Alert: How to create a Linkedin profile

Many students come to our careers appointments asking about how to create a Linkedin Profile. This brief blog entry will give you some hints and tips on how to start and some good resources to explore.

Make sure to book a place on our LinkedIn Day events on MyFuture (17th October). We also have employer events covering Linkedin later in the Autumn.

What is Linkedin?

LinkedIn is a business and employment service which is mainly used for professional networking, by employers and applicants alike. Students, graduates, workers and employers can create their own online profile and thereafter connections which in many cases represents real professional working connections. Students and employees use it for many purposes; finding new employment, researching careers, sectors and employers or for pure networking purposes. Today’s blog entry is about how to create your online profile, however subscribe to our blog to get notified about our next Linkedin blog entry which will give advice on how to find jobs and internships through Linkedin.

Before you start

Before you start creating your own profile, it is important that you have already created a good CV, have a professional photo to upload and have decided on what you would like to achieve with your profile. Then you can tailor that specific profile to the sector or the job role you are interested in.

Building your profile

You have uploaded your photo, but you also need to decide on the headline under your photo and a summary outlining your career goals or areas of interests. Perhaps you are “a Social Science student and aspiring marketing professional” or “a student looking for work”, which is better and tailored? In the summary you have more space to include what you are looking for, some evidence of your experience and skills and clearly stating what your career aims and goals are.

Building your experiences

You can include education, both paid and unpaid work experience, voluntary work, languages, additional staff development courses and interests. This is very much like how you write your CV - have a look at our CV guide for examples and more advice.

Additional sections

You can also add key skills and ask for endorsements of these skills, have previous colleagues and line managers write recommendations for you, you can add presentations, images or other file uploads you think is relevant. These sections can be useful, but make sure to ask your professional connections for recommendations and not friends as this can be looked upon negatively.

Do you want more advice?

Make sure to attend our Linkedin Day - book a space on MyFuture

Here are a couple of links to help you: