Projected Time

Example: 60 minutes

Lesson: 30-60 min
Guided Practice: 2-3 hours
Independent Practice: ungoing engagement
Check for Understanding: 30 min

Prerequisites

Here are links to lessons that should be completed before this lesson:

Resume writing

Motivation

LinkedIn is your online professional identity and a great place to maintain & build connections, communicate to potential employers, and highlight your accomplishments.

LinkedIn Profiles are similar to resumes. Simply filling your profile out with the contents of your resume is a great start!
LinkedIn also operates as a social media platform. It allows you to…
- Make connections with current and previous coworkers. Don’t be shy about asking for recommendations!
- Publicly post links to personal blogs, websites, and projects you want prospective employers to see.
- Highlight volumteering experience and personal interests to fill out your profile.
LinkedIn is often the first place recuiters look when a new job posting opens up, and it’s a great place to advertise your accomplishments and talents. You never know when a great opportunity will come along, so update your profile and news feed early and often.

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

Create a LinkedIn Profile: Name, Job Title (desired: Software Engineer), Professional Photo
Summarize related work experience, education, skills, volunteering
Summary/ About Section: Introduce yourself in the first person and share why your are passionate about coding, how long you have been coding, projects you have completed, and what your strengths are related to the role you want next.
Choose a great photo! Find or obtain a professional photo
Connect with 50 people you know, goal is to get to 500 over a few years.

Specific Things to Learn

Content:
- Include name, job title, and relevant links to GitHub, LinkedIn, or personal website.
- List relevant work experience (use updates resume)
- List relevant technical projects including the purpose of the project, your contributions, and tools/technologies used
Formatting:
- Get a customized URL (How to get one? On the Edit Profile screen, at the bottom of the gray window that shows your basic information, you’ll see a Public Profile URL. Click “Edit” next to the URL, and specify what you’d like your address to be. When you’re finished, click Set Custom URL.)
- Use bullet points (easier to read)

Materials

How to be active on LinkedIn: http://money.com/money/5077954/linkedin-profile-tips-resume/ 31 Tips for LinkedIn Profile: https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-31-best-linkedin-profile-tips-for-job-seekers How To Create a LinkedIn Account (if you don’t have one): https://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-LinkedIn-Account Create a stellar Profile: https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamarruda/2017/01/15/linkedin-101-how-to-craft-a-stellar-profile/#6dcde7e55379 Update profile for job search: https://www.themuse.com/advice/how-to-get-your-linkedin-profile-ready-for-your-job-search-in-30-minutes 99 LinkedIn Profile Tips: Background Photo, Headline, Summary & More https://zety.com/blog/optimize-your-linkedin-profile

Lesson

Where to start:

Guided Practice:

Read and Follow Steps Outlined: How to craft a stellar profile
Review action words and change 6 verbs in your LinkedIn profile: Powerful verbs for you LinkedIn Profile
Quality Profile Picture: Read section 2 of Optimize your LinkedIn profile
Implement 5 tips: The top 31 LinkedIn tips for job-seekers
Implement 5 more tips and read section one (Understand How Recruiters Use LinkedIn to Find Candidates) Optimize your linkedin profile
Ask someone to review your profile and provide feedback (update based on their feedback and then ask additional person to review.

Common Mistakes & Misconceptions

List things that apprentices might not realize, might assume at first, or should avoid.

LinkedIn Profile is a story of who you are becoming not everything you have been. It does not need to be a history of every job you have ever had. If you worked in retail for 7 years and now want a job as a software engineer then there is no need to include the retail experience in your LinkedIn profile. If you do then it will hurt you in search results done by a recruiter. For example a recruiter will do a search for “Software Engineer” “1-3 years” experience and you will not appear although you may have 1 year of experience. You will appear in the search for “Software Engineer” “8-10 years” because LinkedIn counts years of work experience not specific to your title.
LinkedIn is Not Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Only post and comment on things that represent you as an employee. Keep a strict line bewteen professional and personal. For example I can post on LinkedIn that I am going to a Women in Tech dinner or maybe reading a book about bias in the workplace. If I am going to a political march on human rights then unless I am doing that as a organized sponsored company event I keep that to my Facebook page.

Guided Practice

Have the apprentices work with you as you do something step-by-step. This can also be fulfilled by a detailed tutorial intended for beginners.

Independent Practice

Class does this thing themselves with specific additional items. This could be alone, with a partner, or small group; but the idea is that it’s less guided, more independent.

Challenge

Apprentices can try to do this other thing. Ideally, they will be challenged to connect what they’ve learned to some previous knowledge or additional research.

Check for Understanding

Review 10 profiles of people with similar expereince level and think how they could improve their profile and see if that applies to you too.

Supplemental Materials

How To Build An Amazing LinkedIn Profile
Get active on LinkedIn: LinkedIn profile tips

LinkedIn