With over 875 million users, LinkedIn is one of the largest platforms for professional networking. It’s a powerful tool that can connect users to jobs, hirers, professionals, and opportunities. On Friday, January 27th, the Professional Science Master’s (PSM) program invited Sarah Viner to share expert insight on how to level up your LinkedIn profile.
Sarah Viner is a customer success manager at LinkedIn on the LinkedIn Learning team. All MBS students can access LinkedIn Learning through Rutgers!
Over 110 attendees joined the workshop, which was part of our Virtual Friday series. With the Rutgers Career and Internship Mega Fair right around the corner, now is the time to consider updating your resume and LinkedIn profile.
In this workshop, Viner shared tips on improving your LinkedIn profile and building your professional network. She encouraged students to take away three action items from her presentation. Here are some of her top takeaways.
Tell your professional story.
Highlight your work experience and career aspirations. Represent yourself authentically and sell yourself. Use your profile to showcase your accomplishments, unique talents, and hard work.
Complete your profile.
Profiles with more information receive more views, connection requests, and messages.
- Add a profile picture.
- Record your name pronunciation through the mobile app.
- Add a heading. Include a professional mission statement and your career aspirations.
- Fill in your industry. This will help others find you.
- Write a compelling summary. This can be the hardest part! Your summary is your elevator pitch. To learn more about how to write a pitch, Viner recommends Jodi Glickman’s LinkedIn Learning course. MBS executive coach Abbe Rosenthal also led the Virtual Friday workshop: Leading With Your Destination.
- Highlight featured content. This can include your most interesting LinkedIn articles or posts, projects, research, or other multimedia content. Display your accomplishments and tell your professional story.
- Include work experience. Highlight accomplishments from each role and the impact you’ve had on the company. Use active language such as “spearheaded,” “drove,” “led,” etc.
- Include volunteer experience. Volunteer experience showcases your passion and strengthens your profile—especially if you don’t have much work experience.
- Add skills. In the modern workforce, a lot of hiring is done based on skills. Include your technical and transferable (I.e., human skills) on your profile. Viner suggested looking at the LinkedIn Economic Graph tool to see which skills match the jobs you’re looking for. Read our past blog articles about skills in demand:
- Request recommendations. Recommendations on your profile build your professional credibility. Viner suggested speaking to a connection before requesting a recommendation.
- (Optional) Include a career break. Provide context to hirers about any gaps in employment history. You may even be able to spin it to align with the role you want.
Grow your community.
At MBS, we help students grow their professional network through meet and greets, panels/guest talks with industry experts, alumni relations, and more. Connect with your new contacts on LinkedIn!
Use the search function to find others who are in similar roles (or roles you’re interested in), employed at your dream company, or working on projects of interest. Viner also advised students to join LinkedIn groups. This allows you to connect with professionals in your industry and gain exposure to hot topics—which you can bring up during job interviews!
Finally, Viner suggested connecting with an invaluable source of knowledge: Rutgers alumni. Don’t be afraid to ask about their professional journey. As Professor Kathleen Cashman-Walter said, “the more people you know, the better the journey.”
Tools
Viner shared other tools for leveling up your LinkedIn profile.
- LinkedIn Learning. There are courses available about how to write a resume, market yourself, and more.
- LinkedIn tool for interview prep.
- LinkedIn's Economic Graph tool.
If you haven’t yet finished your list of three action items that Viner suggested, here’s a great place to start: Join the MBS student LinkedIn group and connect with us!
Check out our blog for more tips on leveling up your LinkedIn profile.
To see more events like this, visit the MBS events page. You can also stay up to date by following us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.