LinkedIn is helping soon-to-be grads from around the country tap into their professional
community—whether they realize they have one already or not.
Trying to land your dream career out of the gate is a tall order. But here’s the good news: There are roughly 11 million job openings per month in America at any given time.
Why LinkedIn?
- 80% of LinkedIn members consider professional networking to be important to new job opportunities and career success, according to LinkedIn research.
- 70% of people were hired at a company where they had a connection
- More than 20 million professionals including recruiters, hiring managers and decision makers use LinkedIn every week
With 530+ million professionals in the LinkedIn community, there is no other place where you can access such a wide range of knowledge, skills and resources to help you reach your goals.
Use LinkedIn for your Job Search
LinkedIn surfaces popular job titles and listings, as well as top cities and companies for a particular job, making it easier for job seekers and exploring students to learn more about opportunities in various fields.
With search alerts you can get notifications and updates to a saved search via email or shared with you on LinkedIn. Use advanced search filters to narrow down opportunities by industry, location, experience level and more. Once your filtered search is set, simply create the alert.
Let recruiters know you’re open to new opportunities by simply flipping a switch on your LinkedIn profile. It’s called Open Candidates, and yes, it’s that easy. Open Candidates is accessible from the “Preferences” tab on the LinkedIn Jobs home page.
By flipping the switch, you privately signal to recruiters that you’re interested in new opportunities. Don’t forget to update your career interests. This helps you appear in the search results that recruiters are regularly scouring. Additionally, this helps inform the daily job recommendations LinkedIn sends you and surfaces on the jobs homepage.
Connect with alumni
One of the easiest ways for students and alumni to make connections is through the LinkedIn Alumni tool. It’s an easy way to explore people who graduated from your same school, where they work now and in what cities. Simply search for your school and select “see alumni” to get started. You can access career paths for more than 23,000 colleges and universities worldwide.
Learn the skills needed for your next gig
One-third of job-seekers have expressed concern that they don’t have the necessary skills to be competitive in the job market
With LinkedIn Learning, you can now access a gigantic database of online courses on topics from coding and graphic design to public speaking. And here’s the best part: each course is typically sliced up into very manageable 5-10 minute learning chunks. Learning a new skill over the course of a week quickly becomes very achievable.
What now? — Get started
Create or update your LinkedIn profile today. This provides other LinkedIn members with a better understanding of the unique skills, interests, and experience that make you — you.
- Make sure you have a profile photo - it will help get you recognized and connect to potential opportunities. Members with a profile photo receive up to 21x more profile views and 9x more connection requests.
- Members with current positions are discovered up to 16x more in recruiter searches
- Members with more than 5 skills are 27x more likely to be discovered in searches by recruiters
- Including the city where you are based makes you stand out up to 23x in searches
Information adapted from LinkedIn Resources