Are you on LinkedIn? If you are not, you should be! LinkedIn has become the primary online tool for professional branding and marketing. Now is the time to familiarize yourself with it and begin to think about how you can utilize LinkedIn for your professional success. As you are surely aware by now, it can be extraordinarily difficult to convey to potential employers your depth and variety of experience, especially if you have an extensive prior work history. LinkedIn allows you to provide a more complete picture of your professional self and interests.
Here is a list of simple and quick items to check off your LinkedIn to-do list now or over winter break, so that you are prepared next semester to dive in and manage your online professional profile to align with your objectives.
- Add a professional photo to your profile. There are many people on LinkedIn who have not even gone this far. If you have not done this simple step, you are sending a signal to potential employers that you are not invested in LinkedIn and they will then question whether the other information provided is either up-to-date or thought out.
- Add the information on your resume (and content you had to cut) to LinkedIn. For significant work experience, be sure to provide a description of your position and the work you did. You can follow the bullet point format from your resume to keep experiences concise. Make sure to connect to your undergrad institution and UMKC Law, as that will provide a good base for contacts.
- Add your current connections from undergrad, law school, previous work experiences, etc. You can import your address book from Gmail, Outlook, etc. and this will provide you with a good start. For legal employers with whom you want to connect, make sure you only add those with whom you have had a previous introduction. We highly recommend that you personalize your message when you submit your request. Generally, do not add anyone on LinkedIn that you have not met or been in contact with previously.
- Find relevant LinkedIn groups that reflect your interests (bar associations, practice groups, industry groups, etc) and join. This is a great way to signal your interests and career objectives to reviewers of your LinkedIn profile. Also, follow potential employers or employers similar to the type in which you have an interest. Law firms and companies usually have a generic group LinkedIn page that you can follow without needing a specific attorney contact or connection.
- Create a customized LinkedIn URL. Growing Social Biz has a great article with both a video and a step-by-step guide to ensure your LinkedIn profile is professional and easy to remember: http://growingsocialbiz.com/simple-steps-creating-your-customized-linkedin-url/
If you do these things, you will be in a great position if potential employers look you up (which they will). Contact a member of the Career Center with questions about LinkedIn or any other marketing materials for your job search.
Tagged: job search strategy, networking, professionalism, social media
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