5 TIPS ON LINKEDIN NETWORKING TO HELP STUDENTS BAG TARGET OFFERS

A lot of students have reached out to us to understand how they can use linkedin effectively, make a strong LinkedIn profile, and grab offers. LinkedIn is one of the strongest tools for social networking for/ with professionals, as compared with other platforms. In fact, professionals at various stages of their careers use LinkedIn to scout for job opportunities, build up their network, get in touch with senior management personnel of various firms, and even establish contact with headhunters.

So if you do not want to miss any important internships and grad jobs, do keep reading the article below on the 5 important tips we have for you.

In fact, this is the first of a two- part series on leveraging LinkedIn to your professional advantage. In this article we focus on the importance of LinkedIn, how we should use it and will give you some tips on how to use it effectively.

Watch out for our article next week where we will teach students the skills and tips on how to build up a strong profile that can attract your target jobs and recruiters of your interest.

1. A lot of students think that they don't need to have a LinkedIn account before graduation, however that is not the case at all. On the contrary, having an updated LinkedIn profile is as important as having a CV, hence requires you to invest time and energy. It is also a great tool for networking through which you can find more internship/ job roles and mentors. LinkedIn is a great platform to explore, reach out, and connect with senior professionals and decision-makers in big and small firms. Students seeking intern offers in investment banking can try connecting with their school/ college alumni who are working in iBanks. You can reach out to them for any career advice, or even request for an opportunity to be mentored by them. Look for common grounds to build connections upon. You could find people who have graduated from the same university, secondary school, or have been part of any student groups or committees like you (such as Toastmasters, or elite students clubs). Invoking such connections can help you break the ice with someone who would otherwise be a complete stranger. A lot of senior professionals can provide quite helpful and sincere advice to their juniors, in an effort to be supportive alumni of the college.
2. This tip is especially helpful for students scouting for internship opportunities. We have also written another article on how fresher and sophomore students can secure summer internships (unpaid or part- time)  with relatively smaller firms, should they fail to secure offers from big firms and large sized firms. LinkedIn can be a great resource for this if you know how to leverage it to your benefit. LinkedIn can be a great platform to network, and reach out to such firms via cold emails or even calls, to check if the firm’s requires any intern for the summer. Another tip here is that you need not hesitate to directly contact the senior management like the Managing Director of the firm. You  have to make sure that the email you send them is not too long, and bears sufficient clarity regarding your intent and purpose of writing. Here are a couple of examples for you- ‘HKU Finance student seeking internship opportunity’ or ‘CUHK BBA student looking for part- time internship roles’. Short, courteous emails work best when you are writing to senior management as they can be very busy, and won’t be able to spare the time to sieve through endless content.
3. LinkedIn also a great tool for grad job search: A lot of students do not realise that LinkedIn is much more than just another social media platform. You can use the platform to directly apply for a ton of jobs as well! You can either go to the ‘JOBS’ tab and filter out searches suited to your field of interest and location, among other filters. You can also use the ‘Search’ tab on your LinkedIn homepage, type in the job title, like ‘Accountant’ or ‘Junior Auditor’ to get a list of jobs posted by various companies, along with the job description, management level of the role, as well as the ‘APPLY’ button so you can apply directly for the job from LinkedIn portal. Hence LinkedIn can sometimes serve you well or even better than other job search portals like Indeed, JobsDB, or CTJobs. Apart from this, both, direct employers as well as recruitment consultants or headhunters scout LinkedIn to find suitable students and professionals who fit their business requirement or hiring needs. So it is important for students to set up their LinkedIn profiles, and keep it updated so as to be identified by such headhunting firms that can introduce them to new companies and interesting offers.
4. Our last two tip talk about how to post and connect with professionals on the platform. The LinkedIn interface is quite different from Facebook and IG, and so are the rules and purpose of engagement. The focus is more towards career development and professional growth. Students should be aware that all your efforts on LinkedIn must be focused towards building up your professional image and network. Avoid posting anything unrelated to your career ambitions. In fact, the post should reflect your current pursuits related to the job you have or even the industry or firm that they are interested in. For example, you can post about your recent visit to the Bloomberg office, and your impressions of that, or about the case competitions that you have recently joined. Post about how low you are feeling today, or about that amazing trip you took, can totally be avoided.
5. This final tip is about the importance of building up connections. Instead  of just connecting with your classmates and friends, reach out to more professionals beyond that scope to enhance your network. When you send out these connections, you should always write a brief note to accompany your request. Use this note to introduce yourself and explain why you would like to connect with them, instead of sending a cold connection. This increases your chances of getting a response and your request accepted. The connections on LinkedIn are categorised into 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections, and the more people get connected with, the more relevant connections you will be prompted to see. For example, the more data scientists you connect with, the more related professionals LinkedIn will be able to pick up for you, based on the network of your connections. You will be able to see the network of your new connections, and you can decide if you would like to further network with these professionals from the domain of your interest. This also increases the probability of your request being accepted by otherwise strangers, since they can would now be able to find how you share a common professional connection with them. Of course, students should not randomly connect with people without a clear focus. Just like you, they will be able to see details like the industry you are related to, and your connections, so be mindful of how and why this professional is relevant to your network.

The next follow up article to this post will focus on the key skills you need to build a strong and charming profile on LinkedIn that you can use to communicate your professional image.

Meanwhile, we do hope that these 5 tips would be useful for students to understand how to build LinkedIn connections and with whom. Do give us a Like and tag your friends if you found this post helpful. Are there any tips you think we should have included here? Comment and let us know!

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We have helped over 400 to get into prestigious organisations such as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Citibank, BoC, Accenture, Swire, Jardines etc.

To know more about our coaching program, you may visit www.hkcareers.hk/coaching