Linking In
This past rainy Thursday night, a group of passionate women communicators got together to discuss how to best use the elusive LinkedIn. LinkedIn describes their mission as “connecting the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful.” This description sounds daunting but the executive staff of IC Women In Communications (WIC; led by Lexy White, Anna Gardner, and Allie Hartley) cleared up confusions, provided valuable advice and boosted confidence when it comes to online networking. LinkedIn is basically a social media platform that’s focused on productivity and a good place to go if you want to avoid lots of excess selfies and a host of distracting dog videos. As IC WIC member Lena Verga said, “LinkedIn is intimidating. It’s basically become how employers and recruiters find you and decide whether or not they want to hire you. I think this meeting helped ease my LinkedIn-induced trauma. When Lexy, Allie and Anna explained it, it became simple and not scary.” WIC member Jules Grillo remarked, “Besides learning how to respond when creepy men try to message you through LinkedIn, we also explored the value of the platform and now I feel much more comfortable with my profile.”. Easing trauma and learning how to avoid creepy messages? This meeting was definitely an important one.
LinkedIn is a great place to search for an internship, connect with alumni, and, in my case, search for anyone that works at Spotify with whom I could possibly get in contact (good thing I’m on private mode!). After talking about the importance of creating a personal LinkedIn URL, having a professional profile photo, and updating your location according to a big city, we delved into the depths of LinkedIn networking.
Creating your own posts and sharing posts that you enjoy is a great way to let people know what you like, and show that you are engaging with content in a meaningful way. IC WIC vice president Lexy White has even said that making her own posts has allowed her to find more jobs on LinkedIn that are tailored to her experience and interests. Writing about things you’re involved in on campus and projects you’re working on is a good place to start. Personally, I would really like to start sharing more of my own content on LinkedIn, and this WIC meeting inspired me to get over my fearing of doing just that. In addition, following companies on LinkedIn that you’d like to work for is a great way to show them that you’re interested, and to create a LinkedIn feed that is interesting for you to read. The more you personalize your profile and your feed, the more you’ll get out of your LinkedIn experience.
When you’re looking for an internship, LinkedIn can be the perfect tool to get to know more about the employees of companies you’re interested in. While connecting with everyone is a bit overkill, making meaningful connections (and sending them personal notes when you connect with them) is a great way to find that perfect connection that just might be able to get you an internship. Our lovely outreach chair, Natalie Newman, says that she attempts to connect with writers at late night shows she wants to work with. While she hasn’t found a lot of the actual writers, she’s gaining valuable experience and honing her online networking skills. We wish Natalie the best of luck with her connection endeavours! Our fundraising chair Leanne Macaione remarked on how she now understands LinkedIn etiquette much better after this meeting.
While the occasional creepy man might message you, and you might have your whole night sucked away by stalking people, LinkedIn is overall a really important tool for crafting your professional online presence. The site pushes constantly for productivity, but can be extremely enjoyable productivity once you tailor it to exactly what you’re passionate about.
