AGCAS Webinar: Getting Started with LinkedIn

Helen Buzdugan

University of Manchester

13 December 2011

LinkedIn – ‘Facebook for Professionals’

• Over 120 million members in 200 countries and as of summer 2011

• Over 6 million in UK• Not just for experienced professionals (6.5m

students and 9m recent grads)• BUT only 9% of University of Manchester

students/grads use LinkedIn frequently or sometimes, compared with 94% for Facebook(Survey of 747 students/grads, 2010)

Ways I use LinkedIn professionallySome examples:• ‘Recruited’ alumnus now working at Department for Work

& Pensions for our ‘Careers in Politics’ panel event• Careers professional in US shared her LinkedIn training

course outline with me (through LinkedIn’s Careers Professionals Group)

• Joined ‘Go-Social’ LinkedIn group and attended ‘traditional’ networking event in Manchester – made some useful contacts

• Frequently contacted by employers wanting to advertise vacancies with us

• Post questions in the AGR LinkedIn group to get recruiters’ perspectives on different issues, e.g. video CVs

Ways I use LinkedIn with students

• Exploring job roles – what job titles are there in x and what organisations do people in x work for

• Researching career trajectories to see how people get into a desired role

• Identifying organisations to target (by sector or location)

• Researching organisations – e.g. what sort of people do they employ, where do they have offices

• Identifying contacts to target for ‘informational meetings’ or work experience

• Developing contacts for working overseas• Unlimited potential…

Employers – recruiting via social networks

• 92% of those hiring in 2010 were already recruiting or planned to recruit via social networks

• Of this group, 86% used LinkedIn, 60% used Facebook and 50% used Twitter for recruiting

Source: Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey (2010)

Employers – checking candidates’ social media profilesQ: How do you use online profiles when

reviewing candidates? • 38% occasionally search for profiles• 32% always search• 16.2% do not review profiles at all• 13.5% review if provided by candidate

Source: Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey (2010)

Degrees of separation…

LinkedIn groups• Joining groups is important for students to

expand their network of contacts• Can automatically view most profiles of (and

send message to) people in same groupGroups also useful for us for:• Asking questions and sharing experiences

(especially the careers professionals and graduate recruiter groups)

• Sourcing speakers for events• Promoting Careers Service events, services and

resources etc (e.g. your university’s alumni group)

LinkedIn – useful groups to joinTypes of groups include:• Careers professionals groups

– UK HE Careers Professionals– Careers Professionals (group managed by LinkedIn)– AGCAS groups, e.g. AGCAS Careers Education, AGCAS New to

HE Careers?, AGCAS Research Staff, AGCAS International– Careers Debate

• Graduate recruiter/business groups– AGR – The leading voice of Graduate Recruiters & Developers– Graduate Recruiters Network

• Local/regional networking groups• University alumni groups• Sector specific groups• Company alumni groups

Tips for joining LinkedIn groups

• Useful for you to join groups to show students on your profile

• You can join up to 50 LinkedIn groups• See if groups are UK specific (no location search

yet but can enter ‘UK’ as a keyword)• Look for high membership groups• Change your settings for the group to ‘weekly

digest’ or de-select the Digest email box

Most common questions from students

1. What can I put in my LinkedIn profile as I’m ‘only a student’?

Example student profile:www.linkedin.com/in/samuelroutledge

2. How can I make contacts on LinkedIn?

How students can contact people via LinkedIn

• Check if the person has a Twitter profile (if so, consider making contact via Twitter first)

• Check their contact settings for ‘expertise requests’• Usual networking rules apply!• Approach more junior people first, not CEOs• Ask for advice initially; perhaps an ‘informational

interview’ – can lead to work experience and perhaps even a job

• There is a word limit for messages to anyone who is not a direct contact (e.g. group contact) – a short paragraph

• Also consider starting discussion in a relevant group

6 of my favourite things about LinkedIn

1. You can often see who your 2nd and 3rd degree contacts are

2. You don’t have to already know people to start building your network on LinkedIn

3. You can keep in touch with people even when they change jobs (or we can keep in touch with students after guidance appointments and see what they do when they graduate…)

4. There’s no blurring of personal and professional – it’s ALL professional

5. You can dip in and out of it as you need to (but the more you put in, the more you get out)

6. Is it 6 degrees of separation, or just 3…?

In summary… to get started with LinkedIn

• Complete your own profile as fully as possible• Join some relevant groups (can join up to 50)• Join in some group discussions• Find some of your own students or recent

graduates on LinkedIn as examples• In my experience, students need to be shown

how to search LinkedIn for contacts, organisations etc (so it helps to be familiar with it yourself first)

LinkedIn – useful links

• Refer students and graduates to:http://grads.linkedin.com (5 useful short ‘getting started’ videos)

• Example student profile:www.linkedin.com/in/samuelroutledge

• LinkedIn’s free training webinars for careers professionals. Next one: 14 December 6-7pm http://careerservices.linkedin.com/webinar

Supporting students in social media at Manchester

• Presentations – on ‘Online job hunting and networking’ in careers talks programme and careers modules

• Interactive LinkedIn and Twitter lab sessions, e.g. LinkedIn lab for Indian students

• Guidance appointments – frequently discuss and demo social media (in about 70% of appointments)

• Example student LinkedIn profile – Samuel Routledge• ‘How to’ demo videos online - Developing screencasts

to show how to use LinkedIn, Twitter etc for website• Social media profile checking – the

future? Will it form part of our mainstream quick query service

Contact

Helen BuzduganCareers Consultant, with special responsibility for web and

interactive technologies)MLP, Careers & Employability DivisionUniversity of Manchester, UK

• Email: helen.buzdugan@manchester.ac.uk • Phone: +44 161 275 2828 (careers switchboard)• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/helenbuzdugan • Twitter: www.twitter.com/helenbuz • Slides available at: www.slideshare.com/helenpownall