Managing Your LinkedIn Profile In Your Internship Hunt

MANAGING YOUR

LinkedIn Profile in your Internship Hunt

Your LinkedIn profile is the foundation for your personal branding; neglecting it means selling yourself short of an opportunity to display your skills and motivations to employers as you search for internships.

01.

DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE ON LINKEDIN

Before you start filling out your LinkedIn profile, you need to have at least some idea of what you’re hoping to achieve through it. Are you looking to join a particular sector? Or are you aiming to clinch a certain type of internship role? It’s a good idea to check out profiles of working professionals in your preferred industries or roles to find out what skills are in demand, and get an idea of what tone to apply to your LinkedIn profile. What are you trying to market yourself as? What roles do you want to be shortlisted for? Let these questions guide you to pick and choose information for your LinkedIn profile.

02.

EXHIBIT DESIRED SKILL SETS

Similar to how an applicant tracking system (ATS) filters online job applications, graduate recruiters search for industry-related keywords, core skills, strengths, talents and interests on candidates’ LinkedIn profiles to meet their hiring needs. Identify your current skill sets so that you can highlight them in your LinkedIn, much the same way as you would on your CV. Show your motivations and your capabilities. For example, if a job posting for a marketing intern calls for skills in collaboration, visual communication, copywriting, and analysing data, you can write “I am a team player looking to deliver data-driven engagement with impactful designs and sharp copywriting” as a headline in your profile.

03.

HIGHLIGHT WHAT MAKES YOU AN ASSET

Demonstrate your experiences with concrete examples and details in a concise manner. For example, you could mention the exact number of sponsors you brought onboard for your student society events so as to demonstrate your negotiation and partnership management skills. Show how you stand out for the sector and job role you are applying for. For instance, if you are looking at a commercial research role for a specific target market or demographic group, state your familiarity with trends within a particular market segment.

04.

TRANSLATE YOUR SKILLS INTO VALUE

It’s always a good idea to take that extra step to show the value of your knowledge in a real-world setting and demonstrate how you used it to achieve actual outcomes. For example, do not leave out that you used search engine marketing (SEM) in a digital marketing plan to boost traffic to your online side business, which resulted in a 10 per cent growth in revenue.

Make it a habit to record down the tasks and projects you did as a student as well as the impact you generated with your efforts, no matter how small it is.

This makes it easier for you to include accurate information in your LinkedIn and refresh your memory to answer internship questions during your job interview.

Go beyond merely listing your mastery of skills, software and languages. Show how you applied the knowledge in a professional setting, such as how you used your command of a second or third language to negotiate with companies for fundraising activities in your student club.

05.

TAKE A SKILLS ASSESSMENT

LinkedIn offers online tests (designed by LinkedIn Learning and subject matter experts) that enable you to demonstrate the level of your skills, and display a Verified Skills badge on your profile. This strengthens your personal brand by helping employers quickly identify who has the specific skills they’re looking for. So if you’re looking to get hired as a graphic design intern, for example, taking a design skill assessment for Adobe Illustrator or InDesign can boost your chances for the role.

Don’t worry if you need more time to develop your skills before taking the test. Displaying the results of your skills assessments is entirely voluntary, and you can retake the tests as often as you like before showing that you’ve passed.

06.

RECOMMENDATIONS ARE IMPORTANT

Don’t be shy to request for recommendations from your lecturers, seniors and previous internship employers. Recommendations are personal testimonials written to illustrate the experience of working with you, and these statements give employers viewing your profile a sense of what you’re valued for. With that, take the time to think about who you would most value a recommendation from – and personalise your request to them.

EFFECTIVE WAYS TO

Manage Your Digital Presence

DRAW A LINE BETWEEN PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL

Keeping your personal and professional lives on social media separate is a good first step to managing your online reputation and avoiding any awkward crossovers.

Should you allow people in your professional network to be friends with you on Facebook and Instagram? If you do or decide to make your accounts public, are you still keen on sharing the content you would casually post? What about sharing career-related content on your personal feed that is accessible to your friends and family? How would you feel if they were publicly commenting on it?

Start by categorising your social media platforms between those for professional and private use. LinkedIn is a social media platform built for career-related functions, so it is more suitable for your job hunting while keeping your other social media platforms purely for socialising and entertainment. You can also set up two different accounts on one social media platform, especially if you plan on engaging with employers online. For example, you could have two Twitter accounts – with one following employers and job trends, and the other to keep up with your social circle and favourite content. Just don’t forget to always check which account you’re signed in with at any time!

Did you know that your social media presence can either make or break your chances of securing an internship? Check out these useful tips to help you make your digital-self more presentable to recruiters.

I t goes without saying that employers are no stranger to social media usage. In fact, it is one of their most important tools used to screen job- or internship- seeking candidates, and this is why the content on your social media profiles might be the make-or-break it point for your chance at employment. At the end of the day, we’re all creators of our own personal brands, and it’s wise to take a few extra steps to manage your online reputation and find a balance between displaying a professional online presence, while still having fun on social media. Here are some tips on how you can pull that off.

MAKE USE OF YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS

Most social media sites allow you to set your profile to “Private”, meaning your content is available only to your existing followers and friends, and you’ll need to approve or accept new requests for them to view your content.

It’s crucial to note that this privacy option will direct any messages from outsiders to a different inbox than your regular one. So be sure to check these special inboxes to not miss any messages from potential employers.

E.g.

Message Request

Friend 1

Friend 2 Facebook puts these in ‘Message Requests’

Activity log

Archive Recycle bin

Your posts

Photos, videos, text and status updates that you’ve shared on Facebook

Manage Your Posts Activity you’re tagged in

Posts, photos and comments you’ve been tagged in

Manage Your Tags Facebook allows you to display a reduced profile to people you aren’t friends with and review posts that you’re tagged in before the post appears on your profile.

AUDIT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

Aside from using privacy settings to your advantage, if you plan to have your profiles fully public, it’s worth going through them to check and filter out any content that you’d rather hide from the public eye. It’s worth remembering that social media can often be a very toxic place, so make sure you don’t get caught up in it. Here are some pointers to look out for:

Avoid sharing or reposting fake news or unfounded conspiracy theories. Stay away from heated online arguments or debates on potentially controversial topics. Make sure you avoid posting anything endorsing any form of discrimination against another group of people. Always read, research and fact-check a post, article or project before sharing it

Remember to check your profile picture, usernames and bios to make sure they’re not raising any eyebrows. Those are some of the first things that everyone – especially employers - can see from your accounts. After you’ve given your accounts a thorough audit, go ahead and pop your name into a search engine (use an incognito window to prevent your search history from affecting the search results) and see what appears. That way, you’re putting yourself in the shoes of an outsider and seeing what they would see on your profile.

Instagram directs them to a ‘Requests’ page other than your primary and general inboxes.

Messages

Friend 1 Replied to your story

Friend 2 Seen Friday 2 Requests

There’s also the option to reduce the content that people can see on your profiles, customising your settings to allow your audience to view selected content only.

E.g.

Story

Viewing

Hide story from 17 people

Hide your story and live videos from specific people.

Close friends 28 people

Share your story only with specific people.

Done

Instagram allows you to create a list of close friends to only share your ‘story’ with or hide it from specific accounts.

Twitter allows you to control the visibility of your tweets and limit others to retweet or share your content.

Privacy and safety

@youraccountusername

Your Twitter activity

Audience and tagging

Manage what information you allow other people on Twitter to see.

Your Tweets

Manage the information associated with your Tweets.

Content you see

Decide what you see on Twitter based on your preferences, such as Topics and interests.