Leaving college with a nice new shiny degree, very little experience and loads of student debt can be a daunting reality which is why LinkedIn on Friday rolled out new student profile pages that are meant to highlight a students accomplishments for potential employers.
The new profiles allow recent graduates to add all of their accomplishments to their profile, showing future employers all of their “non-business” but related experiences in one easy to view screen.
Among a users new profile features are: projects, honors and awards, organizations, courses taken in college and even test scores from major tests.
The first option Projects allows users to show off class projects, research completed in college and experiences when working with others during those assignments.
The next section, honors and awards, allows students to show off their dean’s list accomplishments, awards from various organizations and even class accomplishments as they see fit.
Organizations is where students place their Greek ties, jobs at the college newspaper and any other registered student organizations and groups they worked with on campus.
Courses as the name would suggest allows students to highlight any class work that they believe pertains to the type of jobs they are searching for such as Engineering classes for an Engineering position or English and teaching classes for future teaching gigs within an English department.
Finally Test Scores allows students to highlight major test accomplishment such as a senior survey final, the LSAT, SAT scores and other milestones in their test taking experience.
Adding new sections is simple just go to your profile and enter edit mode then click on the “add sections” bar to begin the process.
Just remember that your profile will read like a “beginners” resume for potential employers so after a few years on the job it might not be a bad idea to remove those tests scores and add a bit more “real world” type experience to your LinkedIn profile.
Here’s a quick look at the new profile setup:
It’s still unclear how employers will take to the new profile options but one thing is clear, any advantage a new graduate can get over their fellow college students and other entry level workers is a move in the right direction in a less than stellar economy.
What do you think of the new LinkedIn sections for recent college grads?
