In recent years, LinkedIn has become an increasingly popular platform for students and educators in school settings. LinkedIn provides a professional social networking site where students can build their professional brand, connect with professionals in their field of interest, and search for jobs and internships. Teachers and administrators are also using LinkedIn to network with other educators, promote their schools, and recruit new talent.
How are Students Using LinkedIn?
Here are some of the key ways students are utilizing LinkedIn while in school:
Building a Professional Profile
Creating a robust LinkedIn profile allows students to highlight their skills, experience, accomplishments, and interests. This provides a customized platform to market themselves to future employers and connect with professionals in their desired career field. Students can include details like relevant coursework, leadership positions, internships, skills, honors and awards. Profiles allow students to demonstrate their professional brand online.
Networking with Professionals
Students can expand their professional network by connecting with alumni, guest speakers, professionals at companies that interest them, and more. Widening their network increases students’ visibility and opportunities. It also provides a way to seek career advice and get a foot in the door with an employer. Rather than cold contacting employers, students can use shared connections to ask for informational interviews.
Searching for Jobs and Internships
The Jobs and Internships tabs on LinkedIn provide an easy way for students to search for relevant openings based on their interests, skills, and location. Students can find listings posted by nearby companies that might not be advertised elsewhere. They can also directly inquire about opportunities through mutual connections at an organization.
Showcasing Student Organizations
Being involved in student clubs, sports teams, Greek life, and other campus organizations allows students to demonstrate leadership, teamwork, interests, and involvement. LinkedIn provides a place for students to highlight these activities and accomplishments as part of their professional profile. This gives added context beyond just their academic credentials.
Gaining Recommendations
Recommendations on LinkedIn from professors, advisors, supervisors, and colleagues provide credibility for a student’s skills and character. These personalized recommendations can enhance a student’s profile and serve as online references when applying for jobs or higher education.
Researching Companies
Through LinkedIn, students can research organizations that interest them as potential employers or graduate schools. They can learn about company culture, alumni who work there, career paths, and open opportunities. This allows students to be well-informed when networking and interviewing with a company.
Following Industry Leaders and News
Following thought leaders, influencers, companies, and professional groups allows students to gain industry knowledge and stay on top of trends impacting their field. The personalized LinkedIn feed acts as a one-stop-shop for relevant news impacting a student’s career interests and aspirations.
Engaging in Group Discussions
Thousands of niche professional groups on LinkedIn allow students to take part in relevant discussions. They can join existing conversations or post questions to tap into the collective knowledge of professionals in the group. This also serves as a way to increase their visibility and expand their network.
How are Educators Using LinkedIn?
LinkedIn has also become a valuable platform for teachers, administrators, and academic professionals. Here are some of the ways educators are leveraging LinkedIn:
Networking with Other Educators
Connecting with other professionals in academia allows educators to share ideas and best practices. They can interact with educators across the country or world that share their same position, specialty, or interests. LinkedIn provides an online community of peers for collaboration and learning.
Promoting Their School
Educators often highlight their academic institution in their profile to demonstrate their professional affiliation and credentials. This provides a way to organically promote their school and spread awareness of its brand and reputation.
Showcasing Thought Leadership
By publishing long-form posts, educators can establish themselves as thought leaders on relevant topics like pedagogy, educational technology, equity in education, and more. Sharing insights and best practices positions them as subject matter experts.
Interacting with Students
Engaging with current and former students on LinkedIn helps educators maintain these important relationships. They can provide support during school-to-work transitions and continue to be a mentor. It also offers an opportunity to keep tabs on student outcomes.
Connecting with Talent Pipelines
LinkedIn allows educators to engage with talent pipelines like high school students, student teachers, recent grads, and young professionals which aids in recruitment. They can promote job openings, interact with prospective candidates, provide career advice, and attract new talent.
Participating in Industry Groups
There are many niche LinkedIn groups focused on higher education and K-12 education. These groups allow educators to stay on the pulse of what peers are discussing. They can share challenges, crowdsource ideas, and position themselves as an expert.
Coordinating Alumni Relations
Alumni are often highly engaged on LinkedIn and provide a vital networking opportunity. Educators can curate alumni talent pools, interact with alumni to get job leads for students, or tap alumni as guest speakers. An alumni presence is a key pillar for any school.
Researching Other Institutions
Educators can research peers from other institutions to learn best practices that may be applied at their own school. They can also keep tabs on talent that may be potential future recruits for open positions.
Benefits of LinkedIn for Students
Using LinkedIn provides the following key advantages for students:
Career Preparedness
The professional branding, networking, profile building, and industry research aspects of LinkedIn all help students prepare for post-graduation careers. This gives them a leg up and makes them attractive candidates.
Job and Internship Opportunities
With exclusive job and internship listings plus the power of networking, LinkedIn opens up more opportunities for students to get real-world experience in their desired field before graduation.
Development of Soft Skills
Communicating professionally and building an online presence cultivates critical soft skills like personal branding, relationship building, and communication.
Exposure to Professionals and Organizations
Gaining visibility to professionals from aspiring industries and companies builds awareness of various career paths and roles students may not have considered otherwise.
Confidence and Independence
Learning to self-advocate and develop professional contacts boosts confidence and capacity to navigate career transitions and new environments post-graduation.
Validation and Endorsements
Recommendations and endorsements from established professionals serve as outside validation of a student’s capabilities, increasing trust and credibility.
Differentiation
A thoughtful LinkedIn presence differentiates students from the competition and provides a platform to showcase unique skills, accomplishments, and personality.
Preparation for Networking
Practicing online professional communication primes students for effective in-person networking interactions at career fairs, interviews, conferences, and other events.
Insights on Company Culture
By engaging with current employees, reading posts, and consuming company-published content, students can gain an authentic view of corporate culture and values.
Staying Up-To-Date on Industry Trends
Following thought leaders and professional groups exposes students to emerging technologies, best practices, hires, research, and news impacting their field.
Benefits of LinkedIn for Educators
The use of LinkedIn offers several benefits for teachers, faculty, and administrators:
Professional Development
Networking and participating in industry groups enables educators to stay sharp and continue developing new skills, tools, and teaching methods.
Collaboration Across Institutions
Connecting with peers nationally or globally spurs new ideas and allows educators to learn from others implementing best practices at their schools.
Leadership Opportunities
Positioning themselves as thought leaders on education topics provides opportunities such as speaking engagements, consulting roles, or appointments to advisory committees.
National Exposure
Building an educator’s personal brand and school’s brand expands reach and name recognition nationally to aid recruiting and partnerships.
Relationship Building with Students
Maintaining LinkedIn profiles allows educators to keep in touch with students to provide career advice, letters of recommendation, and ongoing mentoring.
Talent Recruitment
Leveraging connections with talent pipelines creates a hiring edge to attract top student teachers, educators, administrators, and staff.
Alumni Engagement
Alumni thrive on LinkedIn, and connecting with them strengthens alumni relations, fundraising, and involvement.
Competitive Intelligence
Researching peer institutions helps educators apply best practices and maintain awareness of competing schools’ strategy and offerings.
Industry Trends Insights
Learning about the latest technologies, approaches, research, tools, and ideas impacting education helps educators enhance curriculum, programs, and strategy.
Informed Career Advising
Educators who actively use LinkedIn understand the power of networking and profiles. They can provide better counsel to students on career preparedness.
Best Practices for Students on LinkedIn
Here are some top tips for students looking to maximize their use of LinkedIn:
Complete Your Profile
Filling out all sections with rich detail sets a strong foundation for your professional brand and presence.
Highlight Course Projects
Class assignments and group projects that demonstrate hands-on experience and application of skills are worth including.
Showcase Leadership
Being President of a club or captain of a sports team exhibits important leadership, collaboration, and ownership capabilities.
Proofread for Perfection
Grammatical or spelling errors undermine your professional brand. Ask others to review your full profile.
Prioritize Skills Sections
This section says a lot about your capabilities. Research skills desired for your roles of interest and include ones you possess.
Get Specific with Position Descriptions
Rather than “Server”, say “Customer Service Focused Restaurant Server”. Use keywords applicable to your target field.
Expand Your Network Thoughtfully
Connect with professionals you have an existing connection to or have interacted with rather than random individuals.
Engage With Your Network
Don’t just connect – engage. Comment on posts, share articles, and ask questions to build rapport.
Join Relevant Groups
Follow groups related to your major, industry, interests, background, and identities to expand your lens.
Follow Target Employers
This provides visibility into their culture, current employees, job opportunities, and company news.
Request Recommendations
Ask managers, professors, or collaborators who can vouch for your work ethic and skills to write you a recommendation.
Research Companies Before Interacting
Review a company’s LinkedIn page and employee profiles before reaching out to become informed.
Participate in LinkedIn Events
Look for relevant livestreams, workshops, and events led by professionals to gain insights and ask questions.
Best Practices for Educators on LinkedIn
Here are some top tips for teachers, faculty, and administrators looking to leverage LinkedIn:
Show Off Your School Pride
Spotlight your school, students, alumni, fellow educators, and campus accomplishments in your posts and profile.
Share Educational Resources
Post materials, lesson plans, tools, presentations, and guides you have developed to establish your thought leadership.
Give Praise and Recognition
Tag students, faculty, staff, and alumni when congratulating them on achievements to support your community.
Offer Career Advice
Share tips on resume writing, interviewing, networking, internships, and other career prep subjects to support students.
Join Local Groups
Search for regional educator groups to connect with peers from nearby institutions and school districts.
Show Personality and Perspective
Share your educational philosophy, passions, background, interests, and beliefs to build relationships
Post Multimedia Content
Incorporate images, infographics, presentations, videos, and links into posts to increase engagement.
Ask Questions
Pose open-ended questions to your network to spark discussion and crowdsource ideas.
Follow Education Leaders
Stay on the pulse of your field by following prominent thought leaders, associations, nonprofits, and national brands.
Promote Events and Initiatives
Share information about guest speakers, new programs, community partnerships, and other happenings to rally interest.
Conclusion
In summary, LinkedIn has developed into an immensely valuable platform for students, educators, and academic institutions. Students can leverage LinkedIn to prepare for future careers, connect with professionals in fields of interest, uncover job and internship opportunities, demonstrate involvement, and conduct career research. Educators are also tapping into LinkedIn to network with peers, establish thought leadership, participate in industry groups, engage alumni, promote their schools, and attract new talent.
With 300 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and a powerful tool for the education sector. Students gain exposure, professional skills, and real-world connections. Educators expand their reach, recognition, community, and capabilities. Schools strengthen their brand, relationships, and competitive advantage. While LinkedIn may have started in the business world, it is now a core pillar of the education landscape.