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By Michael Seaver, Director, Alumni Engagement

In my previous Das Tor article, How to Start Relationships with Thunderbird Alumni, I discussed a multi-step process for introducing yourself to and taking a long-term orientation to building meaningful alumni relationships. In addition to the Alumni Relations Office and the search function on My Thunderbird, another great channel to learn about and engage Thunderbird alumni is LinkedIn. There are numerous social media portals that allow you to brand yourself and search for your next career, but perhaps the most important piece of professional online real estate is a tailored and robust LinkedIn profile.

In this 50-minute video entitled LinkedIn Best Practices, I share ideas for utilizing LinkedIn to establish your profile, live your personal brand, and develop your career. From human motivation to the types of people we trust, you’ll learn how a variety of societal factors are impacting the 21st century career development process. I share with you how LinkedIn is growing worldwide, being used by recruiters, and why you need to leverage this valuable piece of online real estate to engage with stakeholders. You’ll be walked, step-by-step, through each of the sections that comprise the profile and be shown how to maximize each to best display your brand and register in keyword searches. Once your profile is established, I share with you best practices on how to use LinkedIn’s Find Alumni tool, Pulse, Groups, and other “hidden” ways to increase your visibility with those in your circle of influence.

Creating a robust LinkedIn profile and then remaining active is wildly important. Without this focus, there is likelihood that you’ll become conversationally irrelevant. Your goal is to be remarkable (worthy of making a remark about) in the eyes of your stakeholders and securing your next job is correlated to your ability to build a critical mass of advocates inside your target organizations. The Career Management Center coaches do magnificent work in continually reminding students that networking and the job search begins before you arrive on campus. Please take that advice to heart. Leverage LinkedIn early and often to make the accomplishment of your career goals a reality sooner than you may have previously envisioned.

Remember, your success is my success!

If you have comments or questions, please contact your career coach. If you have specific questions about engaging alumni, I can be reached at Michael.Seaver@thunderbird.edu or +1 (602) 978-7080.