A guide to LinkedIn

Start by competing these sections: Name, Profile picture, Headline and About. Have a look at what other people have written about themselves to get some inspiration. Write your own Headline and About section rather than using the ones that LinkedIn suggests.

• Having a photo on your LinkedIn makes you 21x more likely to be viewed
• Writing an eye-catching headline is more likely to make viewers want to read on
• The first 240 characters of your About section need to summarise you, your skills and experience, and what you can offer a recruiter in a nutshell – viewers will then click to read more.

Complete your Experience, Education, Volunteering and Skills sections. You can use the information on your CV to help you with these parts.

Make sure your privacy settings are not set too high! You want recruiters to be able to find you. Set your privacy to ‘Full profile viewing’

• Have a look at this LinkedIn cheat sheet.

Research Surrey alumni: LinkedIn has a fantastic Search facility. For example: You can search for the University of Surrey page, and click on Alumni. There are over 91,000 on there! You could narrow this down by searching for those that graduated in the last 5 years, or by your course, or by the sector or company you are interested in.

Research the company you aspire to work for: You can also search for companies that you are interested in working for; click on People to have a look at the profiles of people who work in your dream company or do the job you aspire to do. Look at their career path and how they got there, to see what work experiences, internships and courses have led to where they are now.

Follow companies that interest you, to keep up to date with what the company is promoting on LinkedIn. You can also join relevant industry groups.

What sort of people can you add as a connection on LinkedIn?

You can link with:

• People you meet at insight events
• Friends
• Family
• Family friends
• Students
• People you find inspiring
• Course tutors
• Careers staff
• Part-time work colleagues
• SU society colleagues.

You never know where the next job offer will come from. Aim to be as connected as possible!

Connection etiquette

• Always add a message letting the prospective connection know why you are connecting or how you know them
• You can also connect to people you don’t know, e.g. graduates from your course, someone you met at an insight event, someone who works for a company you are interested in applying to
• It is very important to add a note if you have not met the prospective connection – you will need to connect with them from their profile page to get the option to add a message.

Comment: Comment on industry-specific articles and ask questions in LinkedIn groups. This shows you're engaged and proactive. Asking a well-considered question demonstrates you are business and industry aware. Don’t ask questions that have an obvious answer that you can find from a company’s website.

Post: Write your own posts about professional topics or personal or professional development. This can be about

• an insight event you attended,
• a lecture you found inspiring,
• a project you are working on, an event you organised,
• an achievement that means a lot to you

And much, much more. You can also @tag people in your posts and use #hashtags to get further reach for your posts. Good etiquette is to ask permission before you tag.

Most companies will advertise their opportunities on their LinkedIn pages. Recruiters also actively go through LinkedIn seeking out candidates for their jobs. Being active on LinkedIn makes it more likely that you will be found by recruiters.

How can you maximise your potential for finding jobs on LinkedIn?

• Follow companies you would like to apply to and click on Jobs on their LinkedIn page to see what they are advertising
• Set up the jobs alerts to receive job notifications. You can choose five different job titles to receive alerts about
• Put an ‘open to work’ banner around your photo and add that you are currently seeking opportunities in your headline
• Make sure that your relevant skills are listed in the first part of your About section
• Use the Advanced Search function: you can filter by pay band, distance from a location, sector, level of experience required, e.g., consulting jobs at entry level within 10 miles of Surrey.