Updating Results
Menu

Aurecon NZ

+ Add a review
4.4
  • 1,000 - 50,000 employees

Using LinkedIn as a student | Tips from Aurecon

Employer Insight

LinkedIn as a Graduate or Undergraduate. With 227 million members and growing strong, LinkedIn is the world’s largest business network, providing the perfect opportunity for students and young professionals to build professional relationships and establish successful and fulfilling careers.

With many graduate employers searching social media profiles as a standard part of the recruitment process, it pays to have a LinkedIn profile.

What can you use LinkedIn for?

  • Connect with everyone. Peers, classmates, past employers, lecturers. You never know how those connections may pay off Ask for recommendations. Take advantage of all of the connections you’ve already made and ask if they’ll recommend you on LinkedIn Make connections. Send comments, share updates and like things so people know you’re active.
  • Introduce people if you think they should be connected.
  • Get access to new grad resources. You can now list projects, honours, organisations and courses you’ve taken, so make sure you include all relevant experience.

Some tips on making the most of your LinkedIn profile:

  • Add a photo: research shows that LinkedIn members who add an appropriate photo are far more likely to have their profile viewed by a prospective employer.
  • Promote yourself: LinkedIn has recently introduced new profiles for graduates, allowing users to list projects, honours, associations, memberships and even courses that you’ve taken while at university. This is all relevant information that can help you stand out from the crowd.
  • List your skills and expertise: this is a key area of your profile as it gives a brief snapshot of your capabilities. Think about your skillset and how they can apply to a potential career, then list them. This can be a few short, concise sentences or even dot points
  • Ask for recommendations: contact your current or former employers, professors and colleagues for recommendations from those who know you in your university/professional life. This will really help your profile
  • Personalise your connections: when requesting connections on LinkedIn, take a moment to change the template request from “I’d like to add you to my professional network” to something that actually identifies you and why you should be connected with that person
  • Build your network: LinkedIn helps students and graduates build and maintain professional networks efficiently and effectively. Connecting with classmates, faculty, colleagues and friends on LinkedIn will help strengthen your network
  • Join groups: groups are a great source of company information, industry news and job opportunities. Search for groups which are relevant to the subject you have studied and the industry or discipline you are looking to work in. Once you are part of a group, you can take part in topical discussions and forums, as well as being exposed to articles, blogs and other useful material which will keep you up to date with what is happening within the industry
  • Search for events: find out about events coming up in your area that might help you build your professional network offline
  • Keep your profile public: although you may be concerned about privacy, keeping a private profile is not the way to go on LinkedIn. Open your profile up publicly to connect with new people, but keep in mind that this should be a professional profile, not a personal one (so be careful what you share)
  • Apply for a job: the people who will employ you are on LinkedIn (be it, recruiters, hiring managers or other company representatives). You can connect or communicate with them directly, but remember that if you are going to apply for a job on LinkedIn you should always include your CV and a cover letter
  • Search for an employer: LinkedIn company pages provide a wealth of information to help you explore where you want to work. ‘Follow’ company pages to learn who companies hire, what products and services they sell, what professionals are saying about them and who you know who works there
  • Be found: many companies continually search member profiles for the best candidates for the job position. Having a profile helps companies

Did you know?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking site, operating in over 200 countries and territories.

  • Two new members sign up to LinkedIn every second
  • There are currently more than 227 million registered LinkedIn users
  • LinkedIn is the world’s second most popular social networking site, after Facebook
  • Over 3 million businesses have a LinkedIn company page
  • Is available in 22 languages
  • 40% of users visit daily
  • There are more than 2.1 million LinkedIn Groups
  • Over 30 million students and recent graduates use LinkedIn

Follow Aurecon on LinkedIn