WHY LINKEDIN AND WHO USES IT?
LinkedIn provides a visual online resume searchable by ATS (if you allow), hiring managers, recruiters, potential mentors, and peers. Your profile is not space-limited, but still needs to be somewhat curated and skimmable. You can also use LinkedIn to search for jobs, compare yourself to candidates, conduct outreach for applications, and prepare for interviews.
LinkedIn can also be a great way to connect with alumni from your University working in organizations you are interested in working with.
LINKEDIN BEST PRACTICES:
Profile Picture, Header Photo, Headline, & Featured:
- Profile picture should be recent picture of just you with good lighting & outfit should match industry (no suits)
- Upload a header photo of a landscape, cityscape, or activity you enjoy
- Featured section should included links to GitHub, portfolio, & prominent projects, but not your resume
Experience:
- Copy and paste the bullet points from your resume and add any relevant media
- For experiences that are less important or don’t have relevant experience, you don’t need to add bullet points underneath the experience
- Options: Because LinkedIn does not allow re-ordering of sections, you can list unpaid experience that is relevant (projects, volunteer work, open source contributions, leadership) in the experience section, but make sure you can speak to it as transferable experience (there was an external stakeholder, etc.) and make you put “Project”, “Hackathon” beside the project or org title to add clarity
- You do not need to distinguish between PT and FT positions unless you think that information is vital
- Your CodePath Tech Fellow or Guru position can go in this section
Education:
Licenses & Certifications:
- Your CodePath certificate should go in this section OR listed within Education section
Volunteer Experience:
- Any unpaid experience that is not relevant and doesn’t go in traditional experience section should be included here