Page 35 - Carlson School GBCC Career Guide

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is out there working for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Put in a little time now to create a strong profile so that hiring contacts, networking contacts, and potential clients know what you want and are impressed by your relevant experience. See the sample on the next page to illustrate how to maximize your profile.
LinkedIn
Maximize Your Visibility
You can increase visibility through a few small steps:
• Make your profile public. Update your privacy and account settings to ensure as many people as possible can view your profile.
• Maximize your search terms. As with a resume, you’ll want to include as many terms from your target job or function as possible to ensure you come up in searches by recruiters.
• Be active. By being active and keeping your content fresh, you will appear in other people’s feeds and will therefore be top of mind. It doesn’t take much, only five to 10 minutes, two to three times per week. This includes:
– Liking other people's posts
– Recognizing and/or congratulating others
– Sharing industry or functionally relevant articles – Creating your own posts (in line with your brand)
Finding and Adding Contacts
You’ll want to add connections of current and former colleagues, classmates, clients, and Carlson alumni. To find contacts, there are a number of places within LinkedIn to leverage.
• Carlson Alumni Page – This is the public site that LinkedIn creates where you can find for all Carlson alumni who have LinkedIn profiles. This includes graduate programs as well as undergraduates. You can get here by clicking the Carlson logo within your personal profile and then clicking the alumni button.
• Carlson Alumni Group – This is a private group run by the Carlson School alumni office. A coach can help you get on the right path to request to join the group.
• Other Groups – Joining groups provides two benefits. First, it continues to add information that helps your personal profile brand. Second, it provides you with a common connection to people you may not otherwise know, making it easier to find new individuals to connect with for informational interviews. Join groups related to your affiliations: Alumni, corporate, conference, networking, non-profit, professional, affinity, languages, etc.
When requesting to connect, be sure to personalize the invitation (see below). Do not use the LinkedIn "invite" function without adding a note.
LinkedIn invitations
Siddarth, I came across your profile in the Carlson School alumni group. Your work as a data scientist is impressive. As a current student in the MSBA program, I would love to add you to my network.
Sue, it was a pleasure to meet you at last night’s event. I think your work at 3M sounds so interesting. I would love to stay in touch and hope you will join my network.
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Carlson School of Management