The head of your company passed you in the hall and asked, "Why couldn't I find you on LinkedIn? I want to make a connection with you!" You walk away thinking that maybe you ought to reconsider your wariness to use social media. In fact, yesterday a colleague announced that he would be leaving the company at the end of the month. He had received an offer from a company that had recruited him from his LinkedIn profile. When you asked him more about the recruitment, he told you that his contact at the recruitment firm confided that the firm would not consider anyone who did not have a positive presence on the site. That was enough for you! You are going to do some research and create a site for yourself.

A survey of recruiters reports that overwhelmingly, recruiters who use social media use LinkedIn to post jobs, search for candidates, contact candidates and do pre-interview vetting (Jobvite 6th Annual Social Recruiting Survey). A new survey from Careerbuilder found that

- 43% of employer respondents use social networking sites to research job candidates, and that

- 51% of those employers who researched job candidates found content in their profiles that caused them to not hire the candidate

Here are some ideas about how you can use LinkedIn to professional advantage.

There is a possible downside, too, so be careful. To understand why employers disqualify candidates, view the survey results at Employers Passing on Applicants Due to Social Media Posts Continues to Rise and read this article On LinkedIn, A Reference You Didn't Write. You'll also want to read this article: How to Use Social Media to Land a Job.

For these reasons, understanding how to effectively employ social media is essential, whether you are required to use it to perform your job or you want to optimize your presence to attract future employers. In this assignment we will explore LinkedIn, the social media platform designed for use by the business community.

You will follow these steps to create a branding statement and a LinkedIn profile.
- Perform an exploration of your career path that helps you gain clarity about your desired profession. To guide your exploration, consider a situational analysis of the career market:
- Macro-level: What is the market like for this type of career path in general? Is the industry demand increasing, decreasing, or remaining steady? Is it better in some areas than others, etc.? Who are the other competitors seeking positions in this profession? Are there potentially other competitors in related industries? Can you identity particular individuals who are your main competition (which will be the case if you are competing internally). How do you compare to these competitors?
- Internal environment: What are the needs in the particular companies/organizations that you are targeting?
- Your goals and objectives: Make them specific. What particular positions do you want, and what is your time frame for obtaining them?

It's a good idea to have some steps along the way. Include plans for expanding your skills along the way.

Next, you will work on your branding statement that could become your Summary.

See Branding statements for some resources and tips to create your statement. Draft a personal branding statement of 100 words or less. Identify the most important key skills/benefits you deliver to your industry, employer, or customer. What are your skills? Describe how are you different from your competitors in a positive way that makes you stand out from the other competitors in the market.

Be sure to edit for clarity and conciseness. Your summary statement should be error-free because it represents you!

Now you are ready to create a strategy to make your LinkedIn site work for YOU.

Identify the industry and employers you are targeting.

Identify your main competitors. If you are looking industry-wide, these may be graduates of other schools or those with similar or different qualifications; if you are looking to be promoted within a company, the competition may be particular individuals in your company.
Once you have completed this advance work, create (or revise) your LinkedIn page. This is due by the end of Week 4.
Create or revise an existing page.

Once you have created your LinkedIn page, go through the checklist and make any revisions you think are necessary.

To finish the assignment

1. Post the link to your profile in the assignment folder.

2. If there is a security clearance or other reason you should not create a LinkedIn page, please let your faculty member know; you can produce a Word doc of a LinkedIn profile as a substitute. You are not expected to provide any sensitive information.

Project 3: Create a Professional Social Media Presence