4 Reasons Why A College Student Must Use LinkedIn

Are you in your final year of college? Soon, there would be hundreds of companies that would come to your college for placements.

You would have to prepare yourself for off campus placements as well. Whether it is an on campus or off campus placement, there’s one thing that has a great impact on your career. That is Networking.

According to a recent survey, 90% of students spend their time on Facebook.

Facebook helps you to connect with your friends and family and widen your social network. But when it comes to bagging a good job, you need a professional network where Facebook is certainly not going to be of much help.

At such a time, what you need is an online platform that would help you to connect with people of similar profession as you are in.

You need to get connected to the experienced and senior people in your profession.

You need to keep yourself updated about latest job openings of several companies and above all, you need to get noticed by the employers.

All of these necessary things are provided by only one network – LinkedIn. Yes, obviously this is not the only one but this is the best one for sure.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a very powerful tool that aids your transformation from a college student to a working professional.  It not only helps you to meet and network with the people related to your field of profession but also meliorate plenty of career related stuff like career planning, job hunting, getting recommendations and much more.

What I believe is when you go for a job interview; the only thing that matters is how proficiently you can sell yourself. And LinkedIn is a tool that helps you to promote yourself which would obviously aid in the sale process. I bet each one of you would agree over that.

Why College Students & Recent Graduates Should Have a LinkedIn profile?

First of all, make a note in your mind that you have spent plenty of time on Facebook and you would get a lot more time once you get a well paying and well suitable job for yourself. So for now, you need to work and by work, I mean start making connections. You need to use the power of social media so as to benefit yourself.

In case, you’re still doubtful, here’s why you must use LinkedIn:

1. Huge scope for making good connections: A very good friend of mine suggested me one thing while we chatted about job search.

“The only thing that matters, after talent, is connections.”

 LinkedIn, because of its 100 million plus users is a best place to build quality connections that would help you grow on professional front.

2. The ‘Get Introduced Facility’: Let me explain this point through an example. Say, I want to get connected to Mr. Matt Cutts, the web spam head of Google Inc. Now, can you quote one good reason for such a busy and high profile person in my field would accept a connection request from a normal person like me? I know the answer can never be affirmative. Right?

But let’s say I have a connection that is further connected to Mr. Matt Cutts. In that case, I would request my connection to introduce me to Mr. Matt Cutts on LinkedIn. Doesn’t that make the job easier? We do keep looking for such opportunities to get acquainted to high profile people in our profession. Don’t we?

3. Find a Job: LinkedIn can also serve as a kind of job portal for you. There are many job openings listed on the site itself which facilitate the process of job hunting. Also, having a LinkedIn profile helps your resume to get noticed which would have otherwise lost in the huge pile of resumes that good companies get every single day.

In fact, in 2018, many companies are doing hiring directly from Linkedin. It’s the new naukri.com or whatever job portal you rely on. Linkedin is a job portal. Use it wisely. People are watching! Your future boss is watching.

4. LinkedIn Groups:  The LinkedIn groups are perfect in case you want to connect and discuss with like minded people. It is more like a college club where you can participate in discussion and also ask for career advice.

Oh! I forgot to mention that you can also follow your favorite company and stay updated about it.

Maybe you don’t like the interface of the tool (It’s too easy to understand and get comfortable with), or maybe you just don’t feel the need of doing that but I would strongly advise you to get a LinkedIn profile for it’s really going to help.

Things you need to keep in mind while using LinkedIn

I seriously waited for this section of the post. Many of you would join LinkedIn but not all of you would be able to take advantage of this tool. The only reason behind this would be your inability to understand what kind of code of conduct you need to follow on this site. Seriously, this isn’t Facebook, so you to need read this before you make your own profile.

• Complete your profile thoroughly, add experiences and skills and include all the professional details. Be active.
• Behave like a professional.
• No group shots, no quotes, no hateful or absurd status updates like getting bored etc.
• No use of abbreviations, slangs, extra punctuation marks.
• It’s not a dating site. Guys, you really need to get that in mind. (Sorry, but had to say this from my personal experience).
• Present yourself properly.
• Ask for recommendations for your work from your connections.

P.S. Do I really need to remind you that you haven’t subscribed to my blog till now?  Do it right now!