Last week at the Digital Summer Clinic meeting, Jasmine Burns, senior recruiter at Duo Security, talked to our students about the importance of a professional and up to date LinkedIn profile!
Jasmine says your LinkedIn profile is like a walking resume.
“Your profile is your living and breathing resume. Build your profile out thoroughly and brag about your wins!”
It is important to build a strong network and interact with that network. Jasmine suggests connecting with people you meet at events, those you look up to in your industry, thought leaders and recruiters with a personalized message of why you want to connect! This will help you when interviewing or when at networking events because you can name drop your connections and happenings in your industry.
What To Do:
-Have a professional photo, headline, and summary
-Include your experience, organizations, education, volunteering, skills, expertise, honors, awards, courses and projects.
-Add your GPA or outstanding test scores
-Make your profile media rich and engaging
Extra Steps:
-Ask your professors, co-workers, or bosses to endorse you on LinkedIn or even write a recommendation
-Get connected and name drop whenever it is appropriate
-Follow the company you dream to work for or a company you think is doing something interesting
-Join groups on LinkedIn and get social
Advice From the Recruiters at Duo Security:
-Utilize a unique profile URL
-Log in weekly
-Fill your profile with relevant key words to show up more frequently during searches
-If you’re open to new opportunities, turn on the ‘Let recruiters know you’re open’ option in your job preferences!
Bonus Info:
-When making impressive updates to your LinkedIn Profile, notify your network about your profile changes!
-Follow your University pages
-Tailor your resume to specific job descriptions
-Have a recruiter review your resume
Wrap Up:Recruiters often use a PDF print out of your LinkedIn profile as your resume, so make sure it is always up to date. Jasmine suggests going to your profile and viewing how your PDF print out looks and adjusting your profile accordingly. Show your enthusiasm through meet ups, personal projects and follow up emails! If you want to reach out to a recruiter or hiring manager, send a short and sweet message explaining why you’re the right fit for their open position and mirror your outreach to the job description.
Remember, It takes less than seven-seconds to convince hiring managers that you are someone they want to talk to! Mirror your resume to their job description to keep their interest!