5 Ways College Students Can Benefit from LinkedIn

You may be having your LinkedIn profile, but do you know how beneficial it can be? Are you active enough? Do you know how you can connect to top MNC's and follow to get in touch with the latest updates and their job openings? LinkedIn can perform near miracles for your career development if you know how to use it. Like other social media platforms, LinkedIn is a platform that can be useful in advancing your career. Recruiters and employers both use LinkedIn to source candidates for employment, sometimes even for career-networking opportunities of their own. Here are the 5 ways college students can benefit from having a good LinkedIn profile.

Connect Professionally:

LinkedIn currently has over 610 million members. It is a platform where people can easily connect with industry experts, professionals, and take the opportunity to get to know each other professionally. This connection, in a way, helps to build your network and seek a chance to start your career with a boost. Also, the more extensive your network, the more venture you have of being referred to a job position.

Prepare for an Interview:

LinkedIn helps you to prepare and be confident in upcoming interviews. Take full advantage of LinkedIn's newest feature, Interview Preparation—and you don't even need a premium LinkedIn account to take advantage of the most important aspects of this feature. If we see, 92% of Fortune 500 companies use LinkedIn, and this new feature can take you one step closer to preparing for your first professional internship or job.

Join Groups:

Based on the details of your profile, LinkedIn provides group suggestions you would like to add to yourself too. Once you join such groups, you will have access to the group database that has similar interests and are easy to connect with. You can always put your LinkedIn profile link into your resume for your future recruiter to get to know your past and present. If you use it correctly, this feature provides a highly efficient and powerful way to build and nurture your professional network.

Get References:

With great follow-up, connection, and group updates, LinkedIn also provides a feature where you get others to recommend you. The number of recommendations you receive for your profile; more is the chance of professionals – drawing towards you. Recommendations from peers affirming your skills will not only enhance your profile, but they will also show a hiring manager references that attest to your candidacy for employment.

Job alerts via Email:

Once you have created your profile here, there is a setting where you select an option of an email alert for the job profile you wish to apply. Job seekers who are among the first 25 applicants are up to 3X more likely to land the job, and LinkedIn wants to make sure you see the jobs you want the minute they’re posted. This way, you’re constantly connected to your LinkedIn profile and are aware of all the possible job openings.

Your Takeaway

There is no time to wait, the earlier you start to prepare yourself, the easier it becomes for you to stay ahead of all others. And following these steps after creating your LinkedIn profile will be helpful to find a job of your interest and help you to stand out of the competitive corporate world. Plus, it's free, and it only takes about 30 minutes to create a profile. So why wait?