Making the Most of LinkedIn®: A Guide for Beginners

This is a guest post written by Cicely Rude, a post-academic turned language consultant and coach. See her website here. Thanks for the awesome advice, Cicely!

LinkedIn® has become a powerful professional networking, job search, and career development tool with multilingual capabilities. Building a solid network of contacts is an important and ongoing part of career development. For that reason, I've created the following introduction to some of the ways that you can optimize your LinkedIn® profile, build your professional network, find your next job, and advance your career. It is written with multilingual as well as monolingual job seekers in mind. For more information read 13 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Find a Great Job.

What is LinkedIn? 

LinkedIn® is a professional networking website. As of June 2012, LinkedIn® reports more than 175 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia.

 

How can I make the most of LinkedIn®?

• Create professional profiles and invite others to become connections, thus building a network of professional contacts. 


• Create parallel profiles in multiple languages. 


• Build a network of first, second, and third-degree contacts. 


• Request introductions through the contact network. 


• Find targeted jobs, companies, people, and business opportunities. 


• Upload an online profile that showcases experience, projects, and skills. 


• Gather recommendations for professional or academic work. 


• Review the profiles of hiring managers and find contacts who can introduce them to you. 


• Follow companies and receive notifications of new job postings. 
  

 

How about employers and recruiters? 

• Employers list jobs and search for potential candidates. 


• Recruiters search for people who match the requirements for particular jobs, then contact those people through LinkedIn®, so make sure your profile is fabulous, succinct, and current. 

 

Things to keep in mind when building a LinkedIn® profile:

• Build a complete profile. 


• Add names of schools you attended and companies you worked for, so the system can find possible connections. 


• Include the dates during which you worked each job or attended each academic institution. 


• Add the languages in which you are proficient, projects you have worked on, etc. 


• Keep your profile current, even when not job-hunting. 

©2013
Cicely Rude
English Language, Culture and Curriculum Consultant
www.cicelyrude.com

13 Tips for Using LinkedIn® to Find a Great Job

This is a guest post written by Cicely Rude, a post-academic turned language consultant and coach. See her website here. Thanks for the awesome advice, Cicely!

1. Build your network before you need it. Click the “Add Connections” button and look for people that you may know, have known, or have worked, studied, socialized, and collaborated with in the past.

2. Think in terms of reciprocal relationships. Instead of asking yourself only, “What can this person do for me?” when requesting connections, ask yourself “What can I do for this person?”


3. Personalize your connection requests for better results. Add a personal note to the generic "I'd like to add you to my professional network" line. Giving an indication of where you met (e.g., at a conference) will help them to remember you and increase your rate of accepted link invitations.


4. Spread the word about your job hunt. Use the update feature to tell everyone in your network that you are looking for a job and ask for leads and introductions. Announce what type of job you are looking for and be as specific as possible. Don’t be ashamed. Everyone has been on a job search and most will be again…and again.


5. Customize your headline. The text beneath your name at the top of your profile page is called your headline. LinkedIn® will insert default text that matches your current job title, if you have one. However, that text can be easily changed to reflect what you want contacts and recruiters to see first. For example, one of my clients adopted the headline, “Executive Assistant, Actively Seeking New Opportunities” and saw an increase in interview offers.


6. If you are bilingual, build a bilingual profile. If you are proficient in a second language and want to capitalize on that skill set in the job market, you can build a second version of your profile in your second language.


7. Optimize your profile for searches. Use LinkedIn®'s suggested key words and phrases to attract recruiters who are looking for what you have to offer. Use consistent word choices, tenses, and adhere to industry standards. Check your grammar and spelling meticulously.


8. Exchange recommendations and endorsements. Invite people with whom you have worked or studied to post a positive review on your profile, or to endorse your skills. Positively recommend and endorse others.


9. Join groups that match your interests. There are many networking groups on LinkedIn®. You can search by topic yourself, but after you have built a profile the system will suggest some for you. Groups can keep you apprised of new developments, discussions, and jobs in your industry or profession. You may also let a group know that you are searching for a new position. Set your e-mail notification frequency to suit your preferences.


10. Follow companies where you may be interested in working. Searching for companies in your geographic area and professional field will enable you to follow them and receive notifications of new job openings.


11. Actively look for job postings and find useful connections. Browse the “Jobs” tab in LinkedIn® for positions that might interest you. Check for second or third-degree connections between yourself and the company– a personal introduction from a first or second degree contact within a company might not automatically get you a job, but can help you get an interview.


12. View your own profile page regularly. Many people overlook this strategy, but it's useful because LinkedIn® will constantly suggest people you might know, companies you might want to follow, groups you might want to join, jobs you might be interested in, and new ways to improve your profile.


13. Remember that LinkedIn is a professional network. Don't confuse LinkedIn® with social networks or social bookmarking. Keep your content professional and relevant.

©2013
Cicely Rude
English Language, Culture and Curriculum Consultant
www.cicelyrude.com

Link Roundup: Real World vs. Ivory Tower

Stuart Bryant via Compfight

These links from around the web compare and contrast work life in the "real world" versus preferences and practices in academic life. For a lot of post-acs, the "real world" seems confusing and strange and very different from what we've become accustomed to in academia.

Unemployed PhD for Hire writes about the differences in work life after one year in a regular office gig. S/he writes:

That's probably the second take home message this past year has taught me - it's ok being outside the ivory tower. Sure, my job is a little boring and the general office vibe could be better, but that's particular to the role and the company. There are also lots of positives, but I can't go into that without spilling too many beans about what I do. Anyway, I can always change jobs if it gets to be too much.

Katie DePalma, a former Classicist turned book editor, offers a list of "how tos" for post-ac jobseekers in this guest post @WoPro. Part of starting a job hunt (and figuring out your life) after leaving academia is letting go of misguided notions and narrow-minded conceptions of careers and priorities. DePalma writes:

Your education and teaching experience will take up about half a page of your résumé. What are you going to say about yourself to fill up the other half?... What can you actually do? Your years in the academy have prepped you for an Other job in a million different ways. You can read anything, write anything, teach anything, and research anything. You’re familiar with a wide variety of languages and computer programs and style manuals. You can coordinate and organize a project as massive as a thesis/dissertation. You can deal with the full spectrum of dysfunctional personalities. This stuff is part of the job of being an academic. But don’t assume that the person reading your résumé knows any of this if you don’t tell them explicitly. Tell them everything you can do and tell them exactly how awesome you are at it.

Amanda @WoPro offers her own compare-contrast after a year of post-ac life. She as a series of real world versus academia posts, but this offers a sample (hint: the real world usually wins). She says

I won’t lie to you, transitions are hard. There have been many points in the last year when I’ve been freaking out about money, which sucked - after grad school, I swore I’d never do that again, but it’s really just unavoidable when you simultaneously change locations and careers. On the flip side, I’m choosing the place I live, the people I work with, etc. I don’t regret it for a moment, and I’m definitely, qualitatively happier than I ever was in academia. Which is all that matters, really.

Here's a taste of small talk in the real world, versus the kinds of conversations we usually have as academics (you know, brandy snifters and Derrida). Caroline @Postacademic writes:

So all-in-all, I’m not sure where that one-upping trash-talking wannabe Marxist academic I was in grad school went, but it sure isn’t to a kid’s Halloween party or the neighborhood playground.

And (Post)GradLand muses about "The Suit Life" in this post after she finishes her PhD and goes to work for a content writing company in Tokyo:

There’s also, I realize, a grieving period in a situation like this. I grieve the classes I may never design and teach, the seminar discussions I won’t have, the groups of like-minded people that I won’t interact with as much, the book I won’t publish, the great epiphanies I won’t have. In short, I grieve the death of my own personal “life of the mind” dream. But as I pointed out before, I just don’t think that dream was a viable one to begin with. And many of the things I miss I can and will still get, in different ways.

Be sure to check our other articles about careers!

Career Advice Introduction

Once you’ve made the decision to leave academia, you will need to consider your financial livelihood. Some of you may have the time and monetary resources to allow you to focus on finding your new “dream” career right away. If so, this is a wonderful time to explore talking to a career counselor, taking a career aptitude test, going back to school, building on existing skills and learning new ones, pursuing additional training or certification, or volunteering.  Many others, however, will need a “for now” job that allows you to pay your bills. In our, and others’ experiences, leaving academia can be difficult enough, so we advocate not putting too much pressure to have all your career answers right away. As JC often says, a “for now” job is the perfect way to give yourself the time and financial freedom to consider all your options fully. Plus, you’ll be building new skills, networking, and establishing yourself  in a different industry. I know many academics feel like we’re “floundering” when we start searching for new careers, but after devoting so much time and energy to one career path it’s only natural to feel a little “lost” professionally.

stuartpilbrow via Compfight

Too often former academics are made to feel as though being a scholar or professor is all we can do.  We don’t feel ready for the “real world.” We don’t feel as though our past work is relevant to jobs outside the academy. Yet this is blatantly untrue. The skills we developed in our graduate program—writing/editing, research, time management, project management, public speaking, content development— are directly applicable to jobs in the “real world.”

Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig via Compfight

As you begin your career search, there are many tools for identifying different career paths and marketing your transferable skills. And remember, if you are having some difficulty finding a job after graduate school—don’t give up! Although right now it’s difficult to earn a job in many sectors, the odds are in your favor. Simply, there are so many more non-academic jobs than academic ones. Persistence will pay off.  Please see the links in this section for additional advice and support as you look for work outside of the academy.