LinkedIn is a great platform to build and manage your professional networks and demonstrate your experiences. Being a student leader gives you valuable content for your profile that not only shows potential employers you have the skills for their organisation, but who you are as a person. Here are some tips for making the most of your experience on your LinkedIn profile.
1. Add a profile picture or banner relating to your role
Your profile picture and banner are some of the first things a recruiter or other visitor see when clicking on your profile. Choosing a photo that shows off what being a student leader involves is a great way to immediately show you’ve got great experience. Just make sure the photo is appropriate!
2. Talk about your role in your “About” section
You can use the “About” section to talk about whatever you want so why not talk a bit about your role, what you do and what that says about you. Look at how other people you know use this section and draft something offline so you can rewrite it until it sounds like you and celebrates who you are.
3. Add your role and explain what you did
When you add your role to the “Experience” or “Volunteering” section or your profile, make sure you describe your role. It’s unlikely that a recruiter will know exactly what you had to do in your role, so briefly outline the key responsibilities, avoiding jargon.
4. Add skills to your role
If you add your role under “Experience”, you can tag up to five key skills to highlight what you’ve developed in your role. Reflect on your time in the role or check the role profile and pick out the most valuable ones to include.
5. Add other skills to your profile
After you’ve picked out the key skills for your role, don’t forget to add any other skills you’ve developed to the “Skills” section. You can also reorder the skills you’ve added so that the important ones are at the top – you can reorder these depending on the jobs you’re applying for.
6. Share your successes
Post regular content sharing the things you achieve in your role. This could include a successful event you organised, a campaign you ran, an award you were shortlisted for or a resource you produced. Photos and videos are more eye catching and can more clearly demonstrate what you’ve been up to.
7. Don’t be afraid to focus on yourself
It’s great to share the successes with your fellow student leaders – and it demonstrates how you can work as a team – but make sure you highlight what you did within the team. If you only talk about how “we did this” it looks like you didn’t do much. Try starting a point with “as part of this team, I did this” to focus in on what you did.
8. Share resources from other sites
Adding related content from other websites can help to build a greater understanding of what you’re doing in your role. These resources could include a blog you write about your achievements or a promotional video about your role – such as this video explaining what a student leader is. Keep an eye on the SU's account to see if you could share something that is posted there.