8 Things Teenagers (and Their Parents) Need to Know about LinkedIn

If you’re mentoring an intern, a student or a family member, the best career training you can provide is a short course in LinkedIn. The minimum age for a LinkedIn membership is 13, so most high-schoolers (and even some middle-schoolers!) can get a head start on making a name for themselves. Of course, grown-ups can’t be LinkedIn role models unless they’re maximizing their own membership. 

Take this quiz to test your LinkedIn savvy before proceeding.

Once you have perfected your profile and have a strategy for using LinkedIn to advance your career, here’s what you need to tell your kids/students/protégés:

1. LinkedIn is a habit that leads to success.

Building a great reputation, maintaining a portfolio, and participating in a community of professionals are the cornerstones of career success. Whether you’re documenting volunteer service or tracking awards and club activities at school, LinkedIn helps young leaders develop a “showcase” mindset. Once you have that mindset, you’re able to have a complete repository of all your accomplishments.

2. College and grad-school admissions committees will likely google you. 

If you’re applying to competitive colleges or want to go for an MBA, maintaining a polished LinkedIn profile is essential. Evidence includes a recent study by Kaplan that shows admissions officers increasingly check applicants’ social media accounts. Even if admissions committees claim to use only the data that was provided in the application, curiosity is part of human nature, and curiosity leads humans to google. Your LinkedIn profile is likely to show up in the top search results, so applicants who use it to the hilt can gain a competitive edge. 

3. LinkedIn can help you choose a college or grad program. 

Universities from around the globe have created LinkedIn pages that provide a trove of inspiration and information about their programs and their graduates, including where they’re working after finishing their degree. This feature will help students make the right decision about which school is right for them.

4. Choose your headshot and background photo very carefully.

A picture that received lots of likes on Instagram isn’t necessarily right for LinkedIn. Use a well-groomed headshot, combined with a background photo that captures your aspirations and passions. Choose images that convey what hiring managers are looking for: a mature, level-headed individual who’s following a clear path. Avoid selfies and photos where you crop others out!

5. Balance aspirations with achievements.

In the job title section and the summary, combine the descriptions of what you do with the keywords for what you want. It’s not enough to list your job duties; describe those tasks in a way that explains what’s special and valuable about the way you work (even if it’s volunteer work or schoolwork) and how it relates to your goals. Express yourself in a voice that is polished but authentically you. These are the roots of personal branding.

6. College grads should use the LinkedIn Students app. 

Launched in 2016 and available for iOS and Android, LinkedIn Students is customized to give soon-to-be grads insight from the membership database. The app helps users find job openings that are compatible with their major, companies that tend to hire from their university, and information about alumni. Even without the app, LinkedIn’s alumni feature lets you connect with potential hiring managers who share your alma mater.

7. Learn how to ask for recommendations. 

Endorsements on LinkedIn are useful, but recommendations make a deeper impression. The best time to ask for a written recommendation is immediately after you’ve received a verbal one. When your dog-walking client or your teacher or your supervisor praises your work, tell them how much you appreciate it, and tell them how honored you’d be if they would type it up into a LinkedIn recommendation. If someone offers to write a recommendation letter for you, accept it with gratitude, and ask if they might have time to also upload part of the letter into a LinkedIn recommendation. If you don’t seem to be receiving much praise, talk with a school counselor or your mentor to find ways to ramp up your visibility and your performance levels.

8. Your network is a valuable asset.

The best feature of LinkedIn is in the name: your connections will link you to other connections, growing exponentially for the rest of your career. But this only happens if you remember to connect with mentors, classmates, colleagues, friends, and relatives along the way. When you get in the habit of connecting with people throughout your school years and your career, you create a comprehensive contact database all in one place. Having your connections in one place is valuable because you’ll move from job to job and lose email addresses over the years. Remember to export your contacts periodically for safekeeping.

It’s never too soon for your mentees to start building a strong professional profile, and if you’re the mentor who guides them through the process, that energetic teenager might grow up to become one of your trusted colleagues—or even your client.

To help your mentee make the most of LinkedIn, have them take this quiz to see where they should apply some effort to amp up their profile and networking strategy.

William Arruda is a keynote speaker, bestselling author and the co-founder of CareerBlast with Ora Shtull. CareerBlast is a video micro-learning platform that provides expert support to blast your career upward in just 9 minutes a day!