Luzerne County Community College - Career Services - Trailblazer's Career Path to Success Lesson 9

The Trailblazer's Career Path to Success

Lesson 9: Create a LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn is quickly becoming the go-to site for employers and recruiters in all majors. The advantages of using LinkedIn is that students can connect with other professionals in their field, research and follow companies, and connect with employers and recruiters. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn is a professional social media site. That means that only educational and work related information is displayed and shared.

In addition to using a professional photo, creating a LinkedIn headline and summary are critical to creating your online image, or brand. The headline should be a short and concise, yet compelling description of who you are because it is the first piece of information that viewers and recruiters see. “Author and Career Services Director,” “Early Childhood Education Teacher,” and “Innovative Graphic Design Graduate” are examples of good headlines. Try to avoid nondescript headlines like, “Student” or “”Graduate seeking Employment.”

The remainder of this lesson will focus on creating a LinkedIn Summary statement. A LinkedIn summary is unique. It is not really a resume and it’s not quite a blog. Unlike a resume, your LinkedIn summary can be longer, more creative, and written in first person (“I”).

Lindsay Pollack, best-selling author, speaker, and spokesperson for LinkedIn, says that your LinkedIn summary statement should resemble the first few paragraphs of your best-written cover letter. Even though you can write in first person, the content of your summary should still focus on the professional. Take care not to be too familiar, conversational, or unprofessional. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? It is. You can use some of the language from your resume summary or your self-marketing pitch to write a LinkedIn summary or vice versa.

When writing your summary, consider your audience. Who are you trying to appeal to? Employers? Recruiters? Other professionals in your career field? If you are looking for a job, then you may want pretend that you are writing directly to your future employer. After all, LinkedIn is the appropriate place to promote yourself.

Keep these four questions in mind as you formulate your summary:

Who are you? (Use adjectives like “creative,” or “dynamic.”)
What do you want to do in the future? (Make a general statement.)
What have you done recently in your major? (Use specific, relevant examples.)
What do you have to offer an employer? (Write from the viewpoint of what you can do for them, not what they can do for you.)

Here are some examples of well-written LinkedIn summaries:
Creative graphic design graduate with a passion for producing high-quality work. Fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Technically proficient in Quark Xpress and all Adobe products (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Acrobat). Interested in helping a company create a strong online presence by incorporating graphic design techniques into web-based advertising.

I am a nursing student who will be graduating in May from Luzerne County Community College. I have completed rotations in pediatrics, med/surg, psychiatry, and community health. My professors have described me as empathetic, patient oriented, and dedicated to delivering quality nursing care. I am scheduled to take the Pennsylvania state nursing exam in July.