Your high GPAs, impressive resumes, and relevant work experience matter, but in this day & age, connecting and networking will put you above your competitors and you can score your dream job. Well, thanks to LinkedIn now you can do it all and much more. This post on benefits having LinkedIn as a college student will hopefully help you to make a decision.

Over the past few months I have been very active on LinkedIn because I have realized how important it is in this day and age and everyone should join. If you are looking for any professional position you must know that building network and making connections with right people will give you much higher chances of scoring your dream job. Starting early and staying active on LinkedIn as a college student on LinkedIn can help you find job as soon as you graduate from college.

Benefits having LinkedIn as a college student:

1. Making your resume extended

You might already be aware if you had job interviews in the past or heard it from someone that it is highly recommended to make your resume one-page and try to stick everything on there and at the same time you need it to stand out to the employer. It is difficult when you have so much you want to put on there but you are limited. LinkedIn allows you to list everything about you or I call it extending your resume. Everything your employer needs to know about you will be there (as long as you have your profile up-to-date). Can’t get easier than that!

2. LinkedIn is excellent for connecting with professionals in almost every field out there

LinkedIn is great for networking and creating strong connections. You will be surprised to see people that you already know in person will be on LinkedIn. As a student, ability to connect with professionals that are in the field that you are studying for and like-minded students that might already be in the job force. And don’t just connect, send a note on your request for connection, there is a big chance that the person you sent your request to will actually message you first. I have this happen almost every other time I connect with someone.

3. LinkedIn is a great way to get found on google by searches

If you are young, you most likely don’t have much information about you on internet other than social media accounts you might have. Have you ever typed someones name into google and things will come up about that person? Well, having LinkedIn profile tend to rank high in google search which means that this will only benefit you in the long run. Importance on having a “well setup” LinkedIn profile is crucial because you don’t want it to be empty or half way done. So get on it and make it stand out to others.

Try typing your name in search engine with area or school and see it for yourself. I hope it’s not going to be your party pictures that will come up from few years ago šŸ™‚

4. LinkedIn is absolutely the best place to get hired

Similar to my point above but LinkedIn is still the best way on the internet to get hired. LinkedIn makes it so convenient for anyone to start looking for jobs because if you plan on moving for example, it cant get any better than being able start connecting and networking with people that are in that area.

Again, it is very important to have your LinkedIn profile up-to-date and complete. Use this platform as a way to sell yourself to everyone or every possible job you might have in the future. This is like your resume but with everything that have to do with you professionally.

5. Letting Companies Find You

You might already noticed how internet and technology have become part of our lives. Companies must also keep up with technology in order to stay in business and over the past three years, growing amount of companies are joining the trend of hiring through LinkedIn. If you have your profile good and detailed, chances are very high that you will get employer’s attention. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a company that you really want to work for contacted you? I say yes.

6. Recommendations

LinkedIn along with many more other features allows to get recommendations and also giving them. You can ask for recommendations from your previous/current employers, or even friends and family. As a college student, this will give you a major advantage in employability.

7. Being able to get Job Email Alerts

If the company you are looking for have no positions open, you could set alerts or notifications for jobs that you are interested in. This could benefit you a lot because you will be the first to know about the position or recommended jobs openings. I have seen many large companies put jobs on LinkedIn even before listing it on their website which just shows how important LinkedIn become.

8. Connecting with other College Students

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with other students. There’s nothing better than being able to build your network than connecting with other students and like-minded individuals. In my case, one of the reason I came back to LinkedIn was because of one of the assignments I had to do which was LinkedIn. The assignment was to make few connections, build my own URL for profile, get/give recommendations, and and most importantly have my profile set up to stand out. We had to post to our weekly discussions URL’s to profiles and make connections with other classmates. After doing this assignment I really gotten into it and variety of benefits having LinkedIn as a college student.

Bottom Line

It is really up to you if you want a LinkedIn account and I hope thoseĀ benefits having LinkedIn as a college student I listed can help you with the decision. I cannot recommend it enough, you need to have it in this day and age to see the real benefits of having LinkedIn profile. I look at it more like if you want to have a professional job then LinkedIn is the way to go. It is very important to make your LinkedIn stand out starting with proper headlines, past/current jobs, skill sets, education to name the important ones.

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