LinkedIn: Love it or hate it, you need it.

When I think back to my university days and the single decision that had the biggest impact on the career I have created for myself now it has to be the dreaded, the despised and the totally misunderstood platform LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the student’s marmite, you love it or you hate it but despite which side of the divide you fall on most students do not understand it.

On the surface LinkedIn consists of two main parts it is a jobs board collating opportunities which can be filtered by experience, sector, degree and alumni and it’s a slightly overly positive promotional space for self-congratulatory achievements and click bait content. I think it is this second aspect that students do not want to engage with, and this comes down to three reasons.

Many of us grew up in schools where it was not cool to be passionate:

LinkedIn is a platform of passion. Or at least that’s what it is aiming for. You are meant to post about job updates, projects, pro-bono work and how you personally do great things for your work culture and company. This overly happy, bright eyed passion comes into direct conflict with state school students who have learnt over time to keep their head down and not celebrate any of their wins too loudly.

This is the crux of the matter. Students need visibility to stand out in an ever more competitive graduate opportunities market but most of them beyond not being able to sell themselves have been conditioned to not even want to. It took me a long time to break out of this mentality, and I would say I was more confident than most students were. Big wins made sense to celebrate but I always struggled to post about smaller projects and discuss ideas not related to a particular course, event or competition. Students that can break through this awkward learnt behaviour can share much more personal and engaging content on LinkedIn.

The role of university student is still prestigious; there is so much interesting experience that can be documented and shared from your impressions of your degree to final year projects. The rule of thumb is if you had that question before going to university some new freshers will have the same questions so go and show them your path and offer them guidance through your experience. 

Be passionate about your path, take direct action and own the fact you aren’t just coasting through a degree but fully immersed within it from course to societies to projects and placements.

To celebrate achievements is to boast:

Linked to this idea of passion and the fear of being aligned with it many students don’t want to come across as boastful to their friends or their peers. In some sense the promotional nature of LinkedIn requires you to take ownership of your success. It is boastful but it’s within an appropriate time and place. No one would read a CV full of great experience and accuse you of being boastful, the CV is no time to be modest. So, why do we do it to students posting on LinkedIn? Why do we do it to ourselves?

For those looking to come across as less boastful though there are a range of steps we can take. First of all, speak about your learning and experience not the achievement itself. This often lands a lot better with people especially if you want to build a consistent following rather than just post for your own record of achievement. For example, in a hackathon students can focus on their achievement and how exciting it was to be involved in a large scale skills event, or they can discuss what skill they developed from attending this session and an idea from a senior student or staff member. This focus on learning and development can take away the intensity of the LinkedIn spotlight.

No one wants to be cringe, so they don’t network:

Students do not understand networking; they both underplay it and over egg it. They underplay the value and power it gives early careers professionals, and they overegg how to go about doing it. If you have not inherited the type of social capital that lets you walk into a middle class office role you need to network. As careers become more stratified in opportunity visibility becomes the main currency which separates the top student on paper from the top candidate in the room. Visibility falls into two main types. You need visibility of opportunities and recruiters need visibility on you.

Most students miss out on opportunities because they aren’t aware of them. To be fair a lot of this tracks with your parents / family’s social capital but just because you didn’t inherit it doesn’t mean you can’t learn and earn it. In a world so connected by the internet and social media we have to take responsibility for educating ourselves and reaching out to mentors where we can’t. If you want to know about hackathons, project events, society career fairs and other opportunities that will make you a more experienced candidate you need to be actively engaged with your university emails and LinkedIn. There are so many opportunities out there for you, but you need to take ownership and make them visible to you.

Now while it does happen I am not suggesting you will post on LinkedIn and some Google recruiter sees your Python project and hires you on the spot for a SWE role but a recruiter looking at your CV for a role might also look you up on social media. Now do you want them to find your Facebook from 6 years ago or your LinkedIn page which you have curated and cultivated yourself? This ability to control the narrative of how you present yourself and influence the visibility recruiters have when reviewing you is really powerful. A LinkedIn profile that consists of no profile picture, no cover picture and no about section can be more damaging than just not bothering at all. To craft a LinkedIn is an exercise in thinking about how you present yourself professionally and if you do it to its fullest potential sets the structure for elevator pitches, CV bios and the pathway you are starting to build for yourself.

LinkedIn is the difference between a recruiter seeing your profile and considering you one of many university students desperate for experience and a young future professional already actively engaged with the market they want to be employed in.

Love it or hate it. It’s beside the point.

You need it.