10 Reasons why every student should be on LinkedIn.

Understanding the importance of connecting with other professionals on Linkedin can invite endless opportunities in the student's career. There's no way one should ignore this social networking platform. 

Building your LinkedIn presence early in life gives you an edge over others searching for internships. That's more meaningful than wasting time on social media that offers nothing but toxicity packaged with entertainment.

Let's dive deeper into the competitive advantage of having a LinkedIn profile right from your college days.

Reasons every student should be on LinkedIn.

As a student, you have to stand out from the crowd while everyone is hustling for the same. That is where LinkedIn jumps into the picture. It can be hard to stand out in the job market when many other graduates try to do the same. 

Are you on LinkedIn? If yes, then good. Made any substantial connections? If not, start doing it now. In the age of fierce competition, Having a Linkedin profile keeps you one step ahead of others.

LinkedIn is a tool you should use to lift your career or waste massive amounts of time. It’ll depend on how you use it. However, LinkedIn can significantly benefit you as a student. Here are a few reasons why:

1. It helps to build your identity in the proficient world.

Most students are confused with the concept of LinkedIn. They see it as fragile or even a little bit tiresome. Wrong! While building the profile, consider your LinkedIn profile your professional brand to transmit to the world. It’s your professional persona that you wish others should see when they search for you. Your LinkedIn profile is your identity to corporations, colleges, co-workers, and the one you want to stay connected to when you transition from student to professional. 

2. It helps you to create your proficient brand.

It’s the ideal platform to show your mastery and insights and get noticed in front of millions of professionals, including classmates, recruiters, and future employers. With this platform, you have the option to blog, vlog, and Slide-share. A prominent way to build impact and thought leadership.

3. Helps in increasing your exposure.

Join LinkedIn professionals, ask them questions, and share ideas. As they are professionals and key business decision-makers. Follow new trends and how industry leaders take these trends.

LinkedIn is a kind of network that can help you learn from industry experts – those who are at your level and above. Building connection with the right person, tell them your story, and you might see possibilities to introduce yourself. 

4. Helps in the discussion of new ideas.

Discussing new ideas will raise the level of understanding and allows you to analyze new possibilities. It can extend your eyes to new professions and ways you might not have considered. And you can join suitable groups and discussions and meet with people working in your field. Another incredible chance to build your profile can be by posting regularly or sharing questions in the groups.

5. Get offers and approvals.

LinkedIn also offers a way by which one can ask others to recommend you. Ask for connections from your instructors and classmates. You can always ask them to say specific qualities and expertise that state your career plans. People having the highest number of recommendations have a great chance of drawing employers' awareness. Go on, improve your employability.

6. Helps you in researching what other graduates are upto.

Want to start a job hunt, or do you have a specific company in mind? Then you can use the Alumni Tool of LinkedIn to find the graduates at your university who work there now. Reach their skills with yours and see which area you might need to improve. Don't worry about reaching out to them with questions. It's a great way to put your foot in the door.

7. Helps you in learning more about the company that you want to be in it:

Once you have cleared your mind about the company you wish to work for, keep checking out the company's LinkedIn page. As it can help you in getting more information on the hiring process and what people working there say about that organization. It's the best way to stay ahead of your competition.

8. Helps you get the job notification.

Once you have made your profile on LinkedIn, you can set alerts to receive notifications on recommended jobs – set your intentions and only accept job alerts appropriate to your interests.There is a specific Portal for Student Jobs and fresh graduates, where you can find internship and entry-level job posts.

9. Helps companies to find you.

There is a vast number of organizations that are looking for talented candidates. You will attract an employer's attention if you have the right, precise professional profile. You can also notify employers that you are looking for opportunities. There is a feature that you can open in your profile named "looking for a job"– ensure that you tick the appropriate box in your choices. 

10. It Helps You Connect with Alumni from Your Institute.

You must be on LinkedIn to connect with the extensive network of people with whom you have something in common.

That's correct. We are discussing alums from your college as seniors in their careers. And who would love to give professional advice to a student like you, or maybe they wish to provide you with an internship? It sounds challenging to reach in an ordinary course of action, but via the magic of LinkedIn, they're just a message away.
 
We have listed ten reasons every student should create a LinkedIn profile and start using it to connect with professionals. Ready to stay ahead of your competition? Okay, here we are giving details about what you must know. 

How to Build Your LinkedIn Profile? 

Now that we understand why having a LinkedIn profile for a student is essential, the next question is how to create your LinkedIn profile—and not just start but also create a high-quality profile that will impress employers.

Here are some steps that we made to understand it efficiently-

ü  Upload a professional photograph

We all know the first impression is the last; when it comes to LinkedIn. Your profile photo is the first impression. You need not get a professional photo shoot, but ensuring avoiding things like:

1. Improper attire: It is not required to wear a formal suit, but ensure you are not wearing a night suit or party dress. How you dress relies on what kind of industry you're looking for. To exemplify, a law student will dress up a bit more formally.
2. Inferior quality photo: Never use blurry, grainy, dark, blown-out pictures that otherwise make it difficult to see you. It makes the recruiter feel you are careless.
3. Wrongly cropped photo: Don't use a photograph taken from far away; never use a picture of multiple people cut to show your face.
4. Obsolete photo: It evolves more as a case as you extend your career. Try to upload your profile photographs as current as possible.

ü  Write Your Intro:

LinkedIn will direct you via this process after creating your profile, but you must take some of its suggestions after adding your presence of mind.
LinkedIn will tell you to "complete" your student profile. But don't worry about making it 100% complete, as you risk adding too much information and overwhelming anyone trying to read it.

Yet, the one area you must ensure to fill out is your intro. It is what people see when they first visit your profile page. You must spend most of your initial setup time working on this part. Once you finish it, you can focus on other sections.

To get to the introduction section, click the little pencil icon next to your profile:
 
First Name and Last Name:
Always use that name across all subject materials while communicating with forthcoming employers.
 
Headline:
Use this space efficiently to briefly detail what you are doing currently, what you wish, or what you want to do in the future. LinkedIn will complete this column depending on your current position if you haven't finished this.

What should one include while writing a headline? Begin with a general description of what you do, and then make the summary more specific. To exemplify, let's say you're a law student. LinkedIn might default write something like "Law student at Kanpur University."

However, there's nothing wrong with that way, but it can uplift your profile if you rewrite the version that focuses on the results of what you do.
By putting extra effort and time into writing a more precise heading than the default, you can stand out from those who have done a similar study or internship.

Current Position:
Updating your current position lets people know where you presently work and your responsibilities. And kindly mention your internships be unpaid. 

Suppose you have started a position for freelance work or a part-time job. How do you go about counting and explaining that? Here's what you do.
First, tap on "Add new position":

Use your real job title, search for the company's name you are working with, add a location, select the date you began and ended the position, and present if you are still working there.

You can also add the type of employment- full-time, part-time, or freelance.
Once you have filled in the basic information, you must write a job description.

You can also choose to edit your headline and inform people on your web about the change. Being a student, you need not be too concerned about telling people, as it's improbable you've performed at any individual company for very long.

The same applies to prior work experience. Be honest, and concentrate on the results of what you did rather than the job duties.
 
Education:
Most of the students ignore this. However, it is essential to add this section. If you've completed your graduation, you can put the years you were in college; else, your predicted graduation year. It keeps the employers update that you have or will have a college education. Adding your university or high school is a vital tool for networking.

Adding locations to your profile:
You're needed to put your area (country or region). We would suggest you put a more specific location if you are comfortable with it.
Your postal code won't occur on your general shape. Don't worry about that. But it will help LinkedIn offer job or internship possibilities within your local area.
 
Industry:
Pick the industry that is closest to the one you do work in. It is okay if you can't find a perfect match. What you write in your profile summary is what people pay attention to. Adding your ambition will help LinkedIn offer jobs and allow employers to discover you. We have already added a summary idea at the end.

Contact Info:
It is a fast step that numerous people forget, though we suggest you take some time to add any contact info that you're comfortable adding.

How to Use LinkedIn to Network?

Once you have created the profile, another essential question that comes into your mind is how to use a LinkedIn profile to build a network. Let's put it to work for you. Maintaining connections to get jobs, internships, and much more is vital.

Be Professional:

It is essential to understand that maintaining professional behaviour is very important when building connections on LinkedIn. The conversation you'll have today will be straightforward, but that doesn't mean you have to sound and work like a robot. However, it does mean that LinkedIn is not the place to share your views on your favoured sports team or video game. It is okay to share these things only if you are working on any project. Also, use LinkedIn to express your opinions, shower ideas, or do social analysis. Save that for Instagram and Facebook.

Make connections with numerous people:

Don't be bothersome or weird, but don't be scared to get contact recommendations to connect with the individual's LinkedIn offers. As you never know who can be helpful to know.connecting with professionals doesn't either hurt you or cost you anything. You don't need to know them personally to communicate with them on LinkedIn as you probably do to add them on other social networking sites like- Instagram or Facebook. And what's more, LinkedIn works to link you with individuals with whom you already have a connection.

When you connect with someone, ensure to personalize LinkedIn's default message for association requests. Make it personal if you don't have to make it complicated or lengthy. If you can define (or remind) people why it makes sense to join you, they'll be more likely to accept.

Get Recommendations:

We've discussed the importance of LOR for job applications or other possibilities. Also, LinkedIn has a built-in feature that lets you get suggestions from the people you have worked for or worked with.

Suggestions aren't critical to your profile, but getting some real ones would surely help boost your credibility. Regarding working professionals, what others say about you and when others recommend you play an important role.

To ensure your requests are reasonable, ask your ex-employers, colleagues, or instructors to write them. Suggestions that come from your close ones can, say, are biased. But it is considered honest regarding the people you work for and with.

To exemplify, while studying at your law university, if you pursue an internship, you can post a letter of recommendation for that internship.

Don't Obsess Over Approvals:

Once you've connected with some professionals on LinkedIn and added a couple of skills, you'll likely get a couple of endorsements and suggestions to endorse people you know.

What are endorsements?

LinkedIn describes, "When a connection supports your skills, it contributes to the power of your profile and increases the chance that you'll be discovered for options linked to your talents."

In simple words, favours are a way to increase your credibility for particular skills. At least, that's the idea. In practice, it wouldn't bother reaching for every skill you marked on your profile.

We've already understood the importance of only having skills you can perform. Adding this is like icing on the cake but not required for your career growth.

And beyond that, you must never ignore that goal of using LinkedIn is to associate with people who can help you reach your experienced goals.

Join and Contribute to Relevant Groups:

Connecting with groups lets you connect with people who share your professional background, are alums of your college, or have a shared interest. They're one of the fastest ways to grow your profile once you've connected with people you know.

Tips to boost your LinkedIn student profile to the next level:

1. Select a professional photograph.

Most students choose a picture with some filters on it that is not considered professional. Per a survey, profiles with professional photographs get 14 times more offers. Some employers won’t even consider your profile the perfect match if you do not have a professional photo as they make them feel you are not severe. Choose a picture with a natural background.

2. Write a catchy summary of your profile.

Students usually do not pay focus on writing a summary of their profile. The headline is your opportunity to tell who you are and what you’re looking for. Get into more points in the outline, but maintain it short and precise. Avoid using words like ‘motivated’ and ‘passionate.’ LinkedIn profiles are searchable, so use the right keywords for your industry.
 
To exemplify, if you are a law student, you can frame a summary like this:
 

My expertise in public interest law firms has obtained my awareness of cases involving employment discrimination and civil rights violations. Last summer, I completed my public law internship the previous month, which taught me the significance of supporting my client after understanding their case against all odds. 

3. Expertise is more than just work.

Experience, internship, and recruitment work must be the initial things you mark on the list. But ensure adding other information, like your education, the classes you took, the languages you communicate, your certifications, and much more. If you add your skills to your profile, it will surely boost your profile.

4. Show your knowledge and interest.

Create effect by repurposing your experience into blog posts, writing about your projects, posting articles, and commenting on posts appropriate to your industry. Communicate with your connections. It is not just a digital resume moreover, a professional network.

5. Connect with your connection the right way.

Connect with your professors, classmates, and co-workers. There is a pro tip to send a personalized message to your connection. You can converse with them to understand what is shared between them.

Bonus Tips:

• Once you have completed your profile.
• Start building a network. Building networking doesn’t mean connecting with the one you have nothing in common. Start building your network by uploading your online address book from your email account.
• Connect with alums. As discussed above, connecting with alums and adding suitable groups is essential.
• Customize your connection requests. Rather than just adding an “I would like to add you to my professional network.” Remind the connections you are going out to where you met, or explain why you want to connect. They’ll be more potential to answer.

Conclusion:

If you’re a student looking to build your network or a job seeker looking for an internship or part-time job, you may find help via LinkedIn. Like another social network, you must ensure that you do it wisely and not get stuck into constantly restoring your feed. But a small investment in the site could bring rich rewards for your career.

Ensure to follow all the tips mentioned earlier to skyrocket your LinkedIn profile.