Guest lecture for Law and Criminology students on developing a professional online presence. A spotlight on the use of LinkedIn as a professional networking tool looks at ten top tips to develop an effective profile.

1. Using Social Networking to
Develop a Professional Online
Presence as a Graduate
Putting LinkedIn
under the spotlight
Sue Beckingham
Sheffield Hallam University

2. Social use of
Social Networking Tools

3. Think about the Digital Identity and
Footprints you leave behind

5. Initial Tips
 Raise your privacy settings on Facebook
 Create secure passwords and lock your phone
 Don‟t disclose personal information
 Be careful what you share and
who you share it with

6. What do we mean by a
professional online presence?
knowledge
and
understanding
skills and
abilities
values and personal
commitment

7. Why would you want to use
LinkedIn?

8. The key professional networking tool
the corporate office
the water cooler
the staff canteen
the bar

9. LinkedIn Demographics
 LinkedIn is in the Top 20 most visited
websites in the world
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/global
 Nearly 5.7 billion people searches on
LinkedIn

10. LinkedIn Demographics
 277 million members worldwide
 students and recent graduates - fastest
growing demographic
 13m+ members in the UK
 professionals are signing up to LinkedIn at a
rate of approx. 2 new members per second.
 Company presence
 3m companies have a page
 LinkedIn Groups
 2.1 million

11. LinkedIn Demographics
7%
26%
18-24
25-34
35-54
54+
33%
34%
Members Worldwide

12. Understanding the value of
30,000,000
are students and
recent graduates
There were 5.7 billion professionally-oriented searches undertaken by
LinkedIn members on the platform in 2012 alone

13. LinkedIn

14. The Employer Perspective

15. Take note….
an unprofessional
profile can be more damaging than
not having one at all.

16. Be mindful of how people search
for information
!
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/global
will find
you!

17. LinkedIn ranks highly!

18. What happened in Vegas, stays on
Facebook!

19. 93% of recruiters are likely to look at
a candidate‟s social profile (Jobvite
2013). Employers may reject those
that come across in a negative light

20. Job applicant
screening using social
networks

23. Employers are
discussing the
implications of a
negative digital
footprint

25. What Employers are saying
"All our applicants
are „Googled‟
during the
screening
process"
"We actively use
the people search
in LinkedIn for
applicants"
"We use LinkedIn to recruit
for internships"
"Applicants have
been rejected
based on
information found
online"

26. Questions to consider
Who will look at your online profile?
 What do people want to know about you?
 Where will they use this information?
 Why is your profile important?
 When and how often do you update it?
 How will you use your profile to your
advantage?

27. Developing your professional
online profile

28. Keywords
Think about the key search words employers
would use if they were:
 looking for people with skills in your field
 looking for graduates, interns or students for
work placements

29. Building your
profile
#1
Check the
privacy
settings and
options
Whilst developing your profile you can opt to
make it private until you are ready to share it

30. Building your
profile
#2
Use
keywords
Include in your
headline, curre
nt and past
work
experiences, su
mmary and
specialities
Think about the keywords you would use in a search
and include relevant ones within your profile so that
people searching for your expertise can find you.

31. Building
your profile
Aim for
#3
Complete
your profile
NOT this

32. Building your
profile
#4
Include a
picture
People want to connect with you as an
individual, so avoid displaying an avatar or
worse leaving the default image

33. Building your
profile
#5
Customize
your profile
URL
Add to your email
signature, blog, bus
iness cards

34. Building your
profile
#6
Include
volunteering
experience

35. Consider the keywords employers
might use to search
Building your
profile
#7
Add your skills
Your
skills can
be
endorsed

36. Building your
profile
#8
Ask for
recommendations
Consider:
• Employers
• Club and organisation leaders
• Parents of friends

37. Building your
profile
#9
Build you
connections
is NOT
Quality not Quantity

38. Building your
profile
#10
Career networking on
Be a Gardener
is an iterative process
Your initial steps will include
seeking career advice and
information helpful for refining your
job search and building a network

39. A minimalistic approach to
you r profile might be fine for
Mark Zuckerberg but potential
employers want to know
about you!
Better to take a leaf out of Reid
Hoffman‟s book

40. Exploring LinkedIn beyond
your profile page

41. Developing new contacts

42. People search
A good way to find the
head of any company

43. People search

44. Search for Companies

45. Follow Companies
http://www.linkedin.com/directory/groups/

46. Groups search

47. Additional useful
LinkedIn tools

48. Student internships and graduate
job opportunities
http://www.linkedin.com/studentjobs

49. http://resume.linkedinlabs.com/

50. LinkedIn Cardmunch
http://www.cardmunch.com/

51. To be aware of

52. The LinkedIn Apply Button
Companies
can add this
to their job
page on the
company
website
Applicants
are asked to
submit a link
to their
LinkedIn
profile
https://developer.linkedin.com/apply

53. Considerations

54. Considerations
Standing out from the crowd

55. We want our students and graduates to
1
• develop confident face to face and
online communication skills
2
• work collaboratively both
“Social Media gives more people a voice and provides a powerful
synchronously and asynchronously
tool for value creation and competitive differentiation”
3
• develop a professional online
presence
4
• use digital tools responsibly and effectively

56. “Social Media gives more
people a voice and
“Social Media gives more people a voice and provides a powerful
tool for value creation and competitive differentiation”
provides a powerful tool for
value creation and
competitive differentiation”
Advanced Human Technologies 2010

57. “Your brand isn‟t what you say, it
is, it‟s what Google says it is…”
It has the power to influence
people to invest (or divest) in you.
(Joel 2009)

58. Don‟t underestimate the
value of YOUR
“Social Media gives more people a voice and provides a powerful
tool for value creation and competitive differentiation”
Professional Online
Presence

59. Guidance

60. Creating guidance for students
Students can access these four resources at
http://go.shu.ac.uk/socialmedia

61. LinkedIn workshops
Creating a positive
impression

62. Sue Beckingham
Educational Developer
Sheffield Hallam University
@suebecks
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suebeckingham
http://gplus.to/suebecks