Guest speaker event with Dr Anna Stumpf at Ball State University

Summary

Dr. Anna Stumpf’s speaker event at Ball State University was a deep dive into the strategic benefits of using LinkedIn as a networking and branding tool for college students. Addressing an audience keen on kickstarting their professional journeys, Dr. Stumpf emphasized LinkedIn’s unique advantages over other social media platforms, highlighting it as a vital resource for building professional connections and showcasing one's skills. She underscored the importance of crafting a personal brand and developing actionable strategies to stand out in the competitive job market. With practical tips and engaging anecdotes, Dr. Stumpf provided the attendees with a comprehensive roadmap to leveraging LinkedIn effectively for career advancement.

Highlights

• LinkedIn is seen as a vital networking tool, not just another social platform. 📈
• Dr. Stumpf advises using LinkedIn to showcase genuine experiences and skills. 💼
• A resume’s sole purpose is to get you an interview; tailor it for every job application. ✏️
• Gen Z is now a crucial part of the global workforce, heightening competition. 🌎
• Be proactive on LinkedIn: engage, learn, and build connections before you need them. 📚

Key Takeaways

• LinkedIn is more than social media; it's a powerful networking platform. 🔗
• Think of LinkedIn as a marathon, not a sprint. Your brand-building takes time. 🕒
• Each LinkedIn connection should be meaningful; avoid random adds. 👥
• Hiring managers use LinkedIn to find authentic experiences. Make sure yours are genuine. 📜
• Your activity on LinkedIn should reflect your professional aspirations and achievements. 🚀

Overview

Dr. Anna Stumpf's session at Ball State University focused on transforming LinkedIn from just another social media profile into a robust professional tool. Addressing students, she stressed the unique capabilities LinkedIn offers as a networking and career advancement platform in comparison to Instagram or Snapchat.

Throughout her talk, Dr. Stumpf repeatedly emphasized the power of authenticity and strategic profile building on LinkedIn. Encouraging students to look beyond the allure of academic achievements, she advised integrating real-world experiences and personal storytelling into their profiles to draw in potential employers and connections.

From discussing the mechanics of networking to advising students on how to leverage their 'golden ticket' status as college students, Dr. Stumpf outlined actionable steps students can take today to ensure success tomorrow. She encouraged students to proactively build meaningful connections and continuously update their online presence to reflect their evolving skills and experiences.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 05:00: Introduction to Networking and LinkedIn The chapter begins with a discussion on the nature of current social media platforms, specifically addressing the trend of ephemeral content exemplified by Snapchat and the prevalent use of direct messaging (DMs) on Instagram. It highlights a noted tendency among users to shy away from public interactions on these platforms. The speaker empathizes with this sentiment but stresses the importance of adjusting expectations when engaging with LinkedIn. The chapter promises to delve into strategies and benefits of using LinkedIn effectively, to assist readers in navigating this professional network.
• 05:00 - 10:00: Importance of Experience and Branding The chapter discusses the differentiation between LinkedIn and other social media platforms, emphasizing that LinkedIn should be viewed as a networking platform rather than a typical social media site. The key term "networking" is highlighted, stressing the need for diligent effort rather than expecting immediate enjoyment or gratification similar to what one might experience on platforms like TikTok. It advises managing one's expectations when using LinkedIn, implying that it is more about professional connections and less about entertainment or instant rewards.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Purpose of a Resume and Networking Strategy This chapter discusses the evolution of professional networking and resume building. The speaker, a college professor with experience teaching high school and being a parent to a teenager, reflects on the significant shift observed over the past 15 years. The exploration of career development has moved towards online platforms like Instagram, which increasingly represent the professional landscape. The chapter emphasizes the importance of navigating these digital tools effectively as part of a strategic approach to building a professional presence.
• 15:00 - 20:00: Challenges and Opportunities in the Workforce The chapter discusses the intense focus on college preparation during high school, highlighting the strategic planning involved in joining clubs, participating in sports, taking AP classes, maintaining a high GPA, and completing the Common Application. It emphasizes the significant amount of effort students put into preparing for college, often over four years. The chapter then shifts its focus to observations made about the workforce, suggesting a transition from academic preparation to professional life challenges and opportunities.
• 20:00 - 25:00: How Applicant Tracking Systems Work The chapter discusses the decline in teenage presence in the workforce over the last 20 years, attributing it to the influence of 'helicopter parents'. These parents, out of love, have prioritized education to the extent that going to school is seen as the child's 'job'. This mindset continues into college, where students focus intensely on their roles as students for four years, often at the cost of gaining work experience. As a result, they find themselves ill-prepared for the workforce post-graduation because employers are not looking to hire someone whose primary skill set is being a student.
• 25:00 - 30:00: Building an Effective LinkedIn Profile This chapter emphasizes the importance of building a strong LinkedIn profile as an integral part of your education and career preparation. It suggests that students should view themselves as a brand and strategically market their experiences and skills on LinkedIn, much like a company would promote its products. The chapter encourages students to accumulate varied experiences during college to enhance their professional presence and appeal to potential employers.
• 30:00 - 35:00: Recommendations and Endorsements The chapter explores the factors involved in making purchasing decisions, focusing on how to assess the quality and durability of products. It raises questions about whether consumers rely on company information or seek external sources for recommendations to minimize risk.
• 35:00 - 40:00: Networking and Building Professional Connections This chapter discusses the concept of a brand being defined by what others say about a product or service. It emphasizes the importance of external reviews and testimonials as the true indicator of a brand’s value and quality, rather than self-proclamations by the company itself. The chapter underlines that potential customers seek authentic experiences and feedback from existing users to assess the worthiness of a product or service.
• 40:00 - 45:00: Developing a Personal Brand and Skills Developing a Personal Brand and Skills focuses on the importance of practical experience over classroom learning in job applications. While hiring managers value critical thinking skills, knowledge depth, and the challenges overcome in academia, they prioritize actual experience like time management, project management, and collaborative experiences.
• 45:00 - 51:01: Practical LinkedIn Tips and Best Practices This chapter focuses on the key qualities that hiring managers seek in potential candidates. It emphasizes the importance of showcasing teamwork, work ethic, and creativity, similar to how a consumer looks for evidence before purchasing a product or service. The content underlines the necessity of providing evidence of these attributes on LinkedIn to assure hiring managers of a candidate's competence and suitability for their team.

Guest speaker event with Dr Anna Stumpf at Ball State University Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 and as a result um what you've been presented with are things like expirable um social media like snapchat you have spent a lot of time on dms on instagram you tend to shy away from what is public which i get believe me i understand that wholeheartedly so the thing that i really want to stress to you is to set some expectations where linkedin is concerned because what i think would be beneficial for you is to
• 00:30 - 01:00 not think about linkedin like social media you want to think about it as being a networking platform and the real key in the word networking is work so manage your expectations when you show up on linkedin it is not going to be um you know that dopamine rush that's super fun and entertaining like when you log on to tick tock it is not going to be um high imagery um and instant you know gratification
• 01:00 - 01:30 from videos and things like when you get onto instagram this is really the business world and one of the things that i as a college professor constantly try and drive home and i want i think one reason i'm super passionate about this is i taught high school for about six years um i'm the mother of a teenager and the one thing i notice is that over the last decade and a half we have really replaced the exploration
• 01:30 - 02:00 and the like whole purpose of high school with it being four years of college prep like you've spent the majority of your high school plotting and planning and strategically thinking about how to get into college right like clubs and organizations and activities and sports and ap classes and gpa and common app and all those things that you worked on to try to get to college the one thing we've noticed in the workforce in the
• 02:00 - 02:30 last 20 years is that teenage presence in the workforce has just plummeted because these helicopter parents who are raising you out of love have pretty much determined that going to school is your job and the problem with that is you carry that on to college where for four years we talk to you about like getting the job the thing is you guys have doubled down on being a student since you were five and no one is going to hire you after college to be a student
• 02:30 - 03:00 so what you really need to work on in parallel with your undergraduate education is experience and that comes in many many many forms the one thing i will tell you is think about this as a marketer like let's approach you and what you are building while you're in college just like we would a brand can somebody um tell me the the way that you evaluate a purchase before you make it
• 03:00 - 03:30 like if you're about to buy something what do you look at to determine if that's going to be a good purchase what durability or quality can you see and then how do you determine that's a great answer how do you determine the quality because what you're trying to do is you're trying to minimize risk so like how do you determine the quality or durability of a product do you listen to what the company is telling you about the product or do you look it for other
• 03:30 - 04:00 means of evidence reviews reviews right you look at what other people are saying about the product people really the definition of a brand is what people are saying about the product i can tell you all day long how high quality good value long lasting what a great investment my product or service is but you really truly care what other people are saying about it you want to know their experience
• 04:00 - 04:30 that is no different than when you graduate and apply for a job the hiring manager wants to know your experience they do not really value what you have done in the classroom necessarily don't get me wrong they're very glad that you're coming out with critical thinking skills and a wide depth of knowledge and that you've been challenged and that you've proven yourself especially if you come out of four years and you've had some time management some project management some collaborative you know experiences but
• 04:30 - 05:00 what they really want to know is does this person put all of those things together are they good teammate are they good colleagues do they have good work ethic are they creative are they you know all the things that we need on our team those hiring managers are looking out there for evidence the same as you do right when you see a product or service that you want to invest in you start looking for evidence to to give you the the confidence that you're making a good pr
• 05:00 - 05:30 a good purchase so that's kind of how i want to think about this i got a couple more questions while i can see you can somebody tell me the absolute sole purpose of a resume okay here what could be the reason for a resume why anyone to express your skills well yes it does express your skills but for what purpose that's its function but what's the purpose if you're a good fit qualification
• 05:30 - 06:00 qualifications good fit those are again functions for what purpose that's the function for what purpose what are you trying to get with the resume yes no no no keep on going go what gets you the job not the resume the resume's one step you have to get something before you can get the job what's the resume sole purpose is to get you what the interview is
• 06:00 - 06:30 the interview yes that is all you're trying to get with the resume so when i tell you that every single resume matters right every single resume should be tailored and be ready for the job that you're applying for so let's walk through this scenario really quickly and what i'm trying to do here is give you a real basis of the difference of like linkedin can make in this process and i know your whole purpose isn't just to get a job but let's be honest you have been in
• 06:30 - 07:00 school since you were five you are continuing to invest in your education you really want there to be a good return on your investment you want to be able to have a better job and a better career and a better quality of life and pay off your loans and earn well right like you want to know that what you're doing here in this class and all your other classes for four years of your life are going to pay off my message to you today is if you don't fully
• 07:00 - 07:30 like strategically plan this whole thing outside of academics and really work at this and do a lot of you know kind of almost academic work on linkedin and think about what you're doing you will probably be uh lost in the pack and when i say lost in the pack i want to express a couple of things to you all you remember studying baby boomers in your high school history classes right like baby boomers were such an impact like we study them
• 07:30 - 08:00 what i will tell you now is gen z is greater than the baby boomers not only in our country which is why we don't hear a lot about it but globally 15 or sorry 50 of the world's population right now is under the age of 30. what does that mean for you 50 percent of the world's population is under the age of 30. when you hear that what does that make you think
• 08:00 - 08:30 somebody said competition already big time competition big time competition so think about that now we've gone through a pandemic where we finally are starting we've got a strong enough stock market we've had five full generations of the workforce the stock market has been strong enough long enough and the pandemic and remote work and all this disruption has caused somewhat of an exodus of the baby boomers out of the workforce so what you're trying to see now is a spread right you're looking at companies major
• 08:30 - 09:00 companies that are starting to figure out hey if we can stay remote if we can do hybrid not only are we giving a better quality of life and benefit to our employees we're able to just grow the applicant pool exponentially so by the time you hit the labor market we're going to have all this figured out takes a while for us old people out here to catch on but we will finally have it figured out so not only are you competing with people in your geographic area you are going to complete compete in a global workforce
• 09:00 - 09:30 we all know as marketers and people interested in business if you do not have a strong brand you will not be in the running for the revenue right you will not have that discretionary or that employer dollar coming your way so you if we know that now let's think about this strategically for a second if you have a job you want to apply for you upload your resume what happens how do we determine who gets an interview for a job
• 09:30 - 10:00 qualifications okay so i'm going to give you guys an example our local mba team here in the indianapolis area the indianapolis pacers posted a job for a client services representative customer representative they got 800 applications how do you determine who you're going to
• 10:00 - 10:30 interview because you've we've already agreed on the fact that the resume is what's going to get you the interview how do we determine out of 800 application who's getting the interview whoever's at good fit right but how are we going to determine that from 800 applications what's that process look like in hr the jobs they're getting here how much experience how much they have been making
• 10:30 - 11:00 so just you guys are giving phenomenal answers what i'm looking for is if you are the hiring or if you're in hr and you open up your screen and it says there are 800 applications and the hiring manager down the hall who will supervise this person is ask for the top 10 applications how do you know what to take to the hiring manager
• 11:00 - 11:30 are these applications going to be ranked are these resumes experience 21. is okay so let me you all are throwing out things like experiences is someone going to physically read 800
• 11:30 - 12:00 apple resumes and evaluate them comparatively some keywords and phrases keywords and phrases who's looking at the keywords and phrases because you are absolutely right our keywords and phrases evaluated on 800 applications guys this is like this is your future so this is what's happened whether you're applying at amazon or some smaller organization that probably uses a
• 12:00 - 12:30 third-party hr system this is reality unless someone is walking your resume to someone and physically handing it to them you upload your resume it gets scanned by what's called an applicant tracking system which is artificial intelligence which is comparing every single resume to the job description looking for the best keyword and the best search optimization just like when you do a google search as quick as that happens is as quick as your resume is
• 12:30 - 13:00 being evaluated 800 people applied for a role 10 resumes got walked down the hallway do you know what was left in the 790 on the stack quite possibly the most qualified best candidate for the job but because they did not put in the work to play this game right they didn't pass the test and they already had the answers to the test the top 10 resumes get walked down the hall the top 10 that match the job
• 13:00 - 13:30 description so i have people come in my office all the time and tell me i've applied for 100 jobs trying to get this or that there's no way they set and scrutinize a hundred job descriptions to match their resume the proper way so please understand you are in full control of this when i tell you that i want you working outside the classroom as diligently as you are inside uh start looking at job descriptions now for jobs
• 13:30 - 14:00 you think you want start looking at keywords phrases qualifications requirements if you are in marketing and they want you to have crm experience and you've not had a job or an internship that gives you the customer relationship management experience that you need salesforce is the number one company for that has a free certification called trailhead work on that instead you know instead of netflix work on that instead of taking a nap get you some certifications put them
• 14:00 - 14:30 on your linkedin add them to your resume and suddenly you're going to go from being in the bottom 790 of a job to the top 10 in applications it's a strategy it's no different than having a good product or service idea but making sure that it is what your target demographic wants what problem are you solving right when we look at marketing it is not our job to do anything other than solve a problem to
• 14:30 - 15:00 create utility for our customer that is all you are going to do as a potential employee is solve a problem guess what if you've never solved a problem for a company before you will not be qualified they are not looking at your degree your gpa what college you went to what sport you played what clubs and organizations you were in they're not looking at your leadership if you will start to read job descriptions those things are never on there now does that mean you shouldn't do any of those things absolutely not
• 15:00 - 15:30 you definitely should and you should learn how to tell your story in transferable skills you can be in a club you can be a four-year athlete you can play intramurals you can have a part-time job as a server or a home you know improvement store you can do all of those things but how do you tell your story in transferable skills that is something you need to study you need to become good at these job descriptions all right back to my example with the indiana pacers the hr person takes the
• 15:30 - 16:00 top 10 resumes that had the best keyword match walks them down lays them on the desk of the hiring manager hiring manager looks at the top resume what do you think they do with that how many people do you think out of those 10 they're going to call in for an interview three to five three to five that is an amazing answer usually people say like
• 16:00 - 16:30 seven or eight think about what you're doing when you call someone for an interview there's prep for that interview there is more than one round of interviews typically there's um bringing the person in or scheduling it the actual interview the follow-up the organization is probably going to invest three to five hours in interviewing someone you are not going to do that times ten times eight times you know five it's probably more like two to three to four candidates
• 16:30 - 17:00 so what the hiring manager is doing with these 10 applications on the desk is looking for the top two or three out of that stack okay and the hiring managers again maybe are a little more relational than transactional like hr they're gonna look at these 10 resumes and they're going to try to figure out who in here is going to be a good fit on our team who in here is going to add to the culture of the team so what kind of things do you think happen when i'm looking at this top resume what do i do
• 17:00 - 17:30 with that name you search for them that's exactly right and you all probably think they're gonna google search or they're gonna go look at their social media and i will tell you that that is further down the line there is one search bar that has become more impactful for google and that is the one on linkedin there are 722 million active users on linkedin linkedin has about 55 million companies
• 17:30 - 18:00 on the platform that are paying money behind the scenes to have access to information that's how come you and i don't have to pay for linkedin linkedin is uh i believe it's 19 years old now and of all of the social media i know i told you not to think about it as social media but of all the social media platforms currently active linkedin has for the last two years had the highest engagement of any social media platform now don't get that crooked tick tock is still the number one download hours spent is a different
• 18:00 - 18:30 thing what i'm talking about is the collaboration and engagement on linkedin 45 of people who have gotten a job in the last 18 months got their job because linkedin somehow whether it was a connection they applied they found the role they connected with people linkedin was one of the things people checked at over 40 percent that linkedin was involved in their career change um so think about that so that the hiring manager types the
• 18:30 - 19:00 first applicant's name into the linkedin search bar it pops up that they have six connections in common let me tell you how valuable that is you guys told me at the beginning of class that one of the ways you buy things are other people's experiences or reviews right that is truly what we're looking for and you can give me recommendations for you know names and addresses and emails and phone numbers of people that you've asked to be a reference for you all day long i've
• 19:00 - 19:30 never met one that's gonna say anything but wonderful things about you right like we know how that works we you know because we live in a very litigious society for the last 15 years you can't call someone's former employer and be like tell me all about this person right like they're only going to verify your last date of employment and your job title like they're not going to give any information because they could get sued for that so what the hiring manager is looking for is some proof some evidence the same thing you're looking for when you're trying to decide am i making a good
• 19:30 - 20:00 purchase so the manager goes to linkedin types in the applicant's name this is the number one applicant out of 800 with the seo right like this is the person who played the game the best types the name in they have six people in common the hiring manager picks up the phone calls one of the people they have in common and says what can you tell me about this person and what do you think the person said i have no idea who that is i have no
• 20:00 - 20:30 idea who that is we all know that's how connections on social media work right this is my warning shot to you it is far better to have very few quality actual connections on linkedin than it is to have quantity and linkedin wants you to stay active on the platform because again linkedin is trying to gather all of this good data to sell to companies on their dashboard on the back
• 20:30 - 21:00 end they want you active they want you um to fill out your profile very in a robust manner they want you to come all the time they want you to just connect and get addicted to it right like they love a good algorithm um addiction just like every other social media platform they're gonna send you emails that say oh people are noticing you or ooh come do this oh you're almost an all-star you better get to 500 connections i'm here to tell you if you are not which this is such a good message for your generation
• 21:00 - 21:30 because we already know gen z is some of the most authentic value-driven uh group of people that our planet has seen in a long time so this message is not lost on you but it is lost if you're getting bad advice or if you approach networking like you do social media please only intentionally connect with people that would answer the phone and have something to say about you this is not a popularity contest you do not want to start connecting with people that you
• 21:30 - 22:00 haven't had conversations with because when you have 800 applicants and you call and ask somebody what can you tell me about this person and they say i don't know who that is that is not somebody you want to hire and you just flip that application over and you go to the next one that person does not get another chance second application type the name in the search bar four people in common called one of them what can you tell me about this person i don't know who that is
• 22:00 - 22:30 it took to the fifth application for somebody to say oh i know them yeah she worked here you know and then started to go into like why she would be a good hire and ultimately that's the person who got the job so please understand when i'm about to show you these things on linkedin linkedin is a marathon it is not a sprint linkedin is not meant for you to handle like you do other social media this should absolutely positively be a strategic
• 22:30 - 23:00 brand initiative for you you should think about everything because everything you do on linkedin is public which i know gives you the heebie-jeebies if you even know what those are that's an old lady term um but it makes you nervous it's not where you're comfortable but if i said to you all right now rather than attending classes this semester what if we gave you the same amount of credit if and sent you out into um companies you can go spend every single class time that you were gonna have out in a
• 23:00 - 23:30 company you could go to meetings you could go to their leadership team things you could job shadow people um you could walk around and see what projects they're working on what their outcomes were you could go talk to their hr people you could talk and ask all the questions you wanted would you rather raise your hand if you'd rather do that than sit in your college classes this semester that's what i thought me too guess what linkedin will do that for you getting on linkedin every day is like going into
• 23:30 - 24:00 the office people are talking about their work problems they're talking about their projects they're sharing information they're introducing you to people they are doing all of the things on linkedin that they would be doing in the office and you have access to it you just choose not to do it so i'm going to tell you right now those of you and i talked to thousands of college students a semester i'm going to tell you i tell them things like reach out to me connect with me i will support you as you uh update your profile send it i hear from about one percent
• 24:00 - 24:30 so the 99 of you who can hear my voice right now who are not gonna do any of this i'm glad we got to meet today to the one percent of you who are going to do this i look forward to collaborating with you and watching you succeed because you have the tools you have this tool and i have to tell you that while you are in college i call myself the golden ticket professor and here's why i believe this i've watched it i've seen it happen while you are in college you can
• 24:30 - 25:00 reduce your risk down to zero you can um reach out to people who have graduated from your college you can reach out to people that are total strangers that are doing the job you want to do perhaps you have a company that is the goal that you want to work for you can reach out to anyone there and if you will start your sentence your email your linkedin message whatever it is with these words i am a college student and they will absolutely positively keep listening and keep reading and they will
• 25:00 - 25:30 help you the haters and the negative people and the ones that have gotten you like full of imposter syndrome and not wanting to act because you think that it has to be like a level of perfection that you'll never reach are usually behind you or next to you also like fearful of doing anything the ones of you who will leverage your golden ticket while you're in college and reach out to people and say i'm a student and i'm studying this and you have a job that i'm super interested in can i zoom call with you
• 25:30 - 26:00 and ask you some questions can i buy you coffee can i whatever it is that you're wanting to do to learn because you also have to think about this you cannot wait until you graduate and start updating linkedin everybody will know that you procrastinated everybody will know that all of a sudden you're updating everything because you didn't do it in the time span of four years that you had to invest in your future everybody will know if you reach
• 26:00 - 26:30 out to them to network because there is a current job open and nobody appreciates that that is the difference between like a first date to get to know somebody and just a hookup right ain't nobody trying to be a hookup on the guys of a first date if you're gonna be on a first date be on a first date get to know somebody develop a relationship ask questions listen tell about yourself and then establish a relationship then in a in six months a year down the road
• 26:30 - 27:00 when a job is open and you know what it may not be your first job you guys all know that the department of labor says today's learner between the ages of by the time you're 35 will have between 10 and 13 jobs so please don't spend four years thinking about your first job because that is not going to be your forever job you take a job thinking where how's this going to get me the next job right that is the beauty of your generation is the beauty of a post code world is the beauty of technology you are going to have constant change in your career and
• 27:00 - 27:30 if you haven't built a good network your change will be at a much slower rate than everyone else so establish a network add value be a good in your relationships and your friendships with people and then cultivate those keeping in touch using linkedin all right i have talked a lot i don't know how much time we have left i want to make sure we get on linkedin but questions comments anything right now on your mind
• 27:30 - 28:00 did i help you frame like how linkedin fits at least good good okay now let's go take a look at the platform a little bit um all right so a couple of things i want to point out that i feel like are super important the first of which is your um the things that that worry all of us right um let me see who's a good one that i could
• 28:00 - 28:30 look up for this all right so this is a former student of mine he graduated from our grad program in july um some of the things that seem like insignificant but i know cause you guys a little bit of anxiety when you're trying to set up your account is um this banner photo please don't go to google images and grab a photo because you don't own that um either go to canvas c-a-n-v-a um this
• 28:30 - 29:00 is a very odd shape as well leave it blank go to canva put a quote do something but make sure you own the rights to it headshots you can take a perfectly good head shot up against the wall with the portrait mode on an iphone this does not have to be like the most perfect you know dressed up image of you just make sure we can see your face the best linkedin photos are definitely like from like your clavicle up like make sure we
• 29:00 - 29:30 can see you the other thing i will tell you is if you are a student um use this is one of your biggest pieces of real estate in terms of your brand right this is your like best communication about what your brand is this is where i would put student i would start with student i don't even know that i would necessarily give um i wouldn't give the university or your major or anything else any room here right like that's
• 29:30 - 30:00 like letting them be an influencer um tagged onto your brand for free i would think of some other words to describe you um christopher again graduated and he has a job with a like one of the top five companies in the world you can't tell where that is because christopher is not merging his brand with his employer which is a very significant choice because remember how many times i told you you were going to change jobs and like what your value is
• 30:00 - 30:30 to build your brand independently be very careful how like closely you um take on those like branding um connections so think of something here and if student is something that is quick it's easy it's true it's also i think your golden ticket if that's all you have put that you can put that you're looking for an internship you can put i mean if you want to put your major whatever like just make sure we get a good sense of who you are but the thing
• 30:30 - 31:00 that's nice about this as as you go through linkedin you'll notice that when people comment um let me find one that's got a comment like bran brian's comment here he's a marketing manager at this company okay so it makes sense that brian is like making those comments if you want to have like what i call low risk just put student as your headline and that'll be you know enough to give you like a really good um kind of a
• 31:00 - 31:30 trouble-free approach to being engaging on the platform the other thing i will tell you that really truly matters is this about section and this thing is not set in stone you can go back and change it as often as you need to this is where i would say like this is where you should here's where i'm going to school this is what i'm majoring in and then the most important thing is your why um and make sure that you're doing a good job with that this is another student um that i work with his name is nathan he is an engineering
• 31:30 - 32:00 major but the thing about it nathan starts his about with like the most powerful origin story and the why so again as marketers we know about that emotional connection we know like people don't care what you do until they know why you do it or who you really are people do business with people so think about that he talks about his earliest memory was driving his power wheels and going and finding a screwdriver and turning off
• 32:00 - 32:30 the parental safety so he could go faster like that put you in the mind of why do you want to be an engineer why do you like doing this right so make sure that you develop over time this all doesn't have to be done in one day that's why i want you to be working on your linkedin profile for like a couple of years um but as you get on the platform and you spend more time and you start to see how other people are engaging with their about story and what they're saying it gives you ideas and inspiration for your own so that is always a really good
• 32:30 - 33:00 place to go you can add documents and things as you go through if you've worked on projects as you get the certifications if they give you a certificate you put it here or you can put it later the one thing i think is super important for you to know and it's different you can lock this down you can make it private i think i'm not even sure why you'd want to that just defeats the entire purpose embrace the fact that every single thing you do on linkedin is public and
• 33:00 - 33:30 trackable and can be looked at by anyone which is like a little fearful if you're not used to this to me it's the best thing ever because it allows you to strategically build your brand um before you even have to truly have a brand right so these are really good things so nathan um as most engineers not really active on linkedin as much if we go back to chris and we go to his activity very very active on the platform we can
• 33:30 - 34:00 go here and we can see everything that he's liked um and he's liked a lot of stuff right he likes this he likes this um he made a comment so we can go down through here and we can find like where his comment was and what he said um so it shows us everything that he likes which is great um if he's made posts so that here is christopher creating content so i have a way to just go look at things that chris
• 34:00 - 34:30 has created content about if he's written any articles and i'm going to really challenge you before you become a senior and before graduation that you take some sort of experience um whether it's like um let me say i've got alyssa who's done a great job with this if we go into alyssa attended a sports marketing conference she did a reflection off like what kovid has taught her so you can write these are
• 34:30 - 35:00 not long either when you look at the one that she wrote about her attending this conference um she put numbered areas she took the top three things look number two is like barely a full paragraph what that does she's not trying to go viral she's not trying to get published but as she works to try and get a job in the sports industry she wants to show that just how she finds value how she learned and that she will create content
• 35:00 - 35:30 because that's probably as a sport market or going to be something that's asked of her someday so all of this is very visible as well as should be so that's your activity section then you have the way that you can go talk about your experiences this one i will show you i looked at over the weekend because this person reached out to me and asked me um as a former teacher of hers could i um write a letter write a
• 35:30 - 36:00 recommendation for her on linkedin because she is struggling to find a new role well i will tell you why she's struggling to find a new role she hasn't done anything on linkedin in 90 days and she has listed what she's done but she has not given any context no results no transferable skills no information about any of these roles she is absolutely positively just ignoring like the number one marketing tool that she has for her personal brand so i had a real uh moment
• 36:00 - 36:30 when she asked would i please write her a letter of recommendation because now all of a sudden she's wanting me to show up and give a review on a product that nobody can learn about right like nobody's ever heard of or can't do any information on so this is really important again it does not all have to be done at one time take your time and then study how other people are explaining their roles and their outcomes and things and make sure you use numbers and context as much as
• 36:30 - 37:00 possible so you want to continue to work on that um here's where you can put your licenses your certifications if you do like um hubspot or salesforce any of their free certifications you can put that here if your university has access to linkedin learning that you can do for free i would definitely do some of those skills and endorsements as marketers i have to tell you this is probably the thing you should be most excited about
• 37:00 - 37:30 because skills and endorsements populates a list from everything that you put in your linkedin profile so it's all right here but you are also able to go in i'm gonna go to alyssa's because she's got i don't think i've done all hers too um so skills and endorsements it'll populate this whole list from things you've already put and then people are able to come in and endorse you so if i click on
• 37:30 - 38:00 nathan it's going to ask me how good is he at this right so i'm gonna say i think he's highly skilled and i work with him indirectly so now he has an endorsement for that skill if you will pick the top three things that you strategically believe represent your brand and will prepare you for um jobs that you'll be applying for in the future you can start to build your review base right you can start to
• 38:00 - 38:30 show that you've got some experience in those um the other thing that i think is probably one of the most important things you can do strategically while you're in college is the recommendations and now if you can go ask for recommendations that's great but i'm gonna tell you the real power here is in giving them and you don't have to ask anybody for this if you're a junior i would say at least every other month you need to be giving
• 38:30 - 39:00 a recommendation if you're a senior i would probably be doing them every month if you're younger than that maybe once or twice a semester the beauty of this is you are uplifting and like highlighting other people but what you have to say about those people is visible on your pro profile to everyone this is where you can strategically establish how you engage with other people the value that you find in them what you're
• 39:00 - 39:30 like as a colleague very very impactful so chris has given four recommendations and as you can tell they are not short right like christopher brings an amazing amount of relatable experience and if you look at these he's wants to be a multiplier a leader a lifelong learner like he's proving through these things what he um it says he is like this is his social proof for the ones he's received you definitely can ask people to write a recommendation for you but then be very
• 39:30 - 40:00 strategic what are your brand highlights your differentiators your unique um value and then ask people to be specific when they write a letter of recommendation for you nothing drives me crazier than for somebody to reach out and say can you write me a recommendation and i have to be like about what so be very specific can you write about the time that we were in that group project together can you write about the time that you know whatever it was and then ask people to write about it the other thing i'm going to tell you is
• 40:00 - 40:30 to um please make sure trying to find somebody i'm not connected with please make sure that as you find people that you want to connect with you don't have to connect with everyone if i think chandler is somebody that i want to see his content and my feed and kind of follow him i can go here to more and i can click on follow so now everything chandler does is going to show up in my newsfeed but i have not actually
• 40:30 - 41:00 connected with him and remember what that means when people come to evaluate you about your network now if i did know chandler or maybe we have 113 people in common and i ran into him at a conference or whatever it might be on the desktop i can click connect and it's going to say please add like you have the opportunity to add a note i'm going to tell you never ever ever again connect with someone without a note even if you're sitting next to them and
• 41:00 - 41:30 you're telling them i'm going to connect with you if you're on your mobile app and you click on connect it's just going to automatically send the generic don't do any of the generic stuff right people see thousands of those generic messages make yours different and the reason it's super important to connect with a note is because that is going to go down here and that is going to open up a message i have so many messages in here and people that i have connected with um so let's see who's an example from
• 41:30 - 42:00 last sam is an example from last week samantha was in the class i talked to on thursday um she's making fun of my golden ticket thing which i thought was adorable but this is how she connected with me so if sam ever wants to get back in touch with me this message is open and the history is there so i know that she is connecting from a real authentic standpoint and not just trying to get something um from me versus um if you take a look at brittany
• 42:00 - 42:30 brittany reached out to me and said hi someone that i i met at a conference mentioned your name always looking to learn more about linkedin yikes gosh britney that feels like you need a lot for me but i'm not sure why i would connect with you right like there's a nuance to this that matters i think so please make sure that you're being very intentional with your connections aaron was also somebody that i spoke to in his class
• 42:30 - 43:00 last week and he said i want to let you know your message did not go unheard i'm working on growing my linkedin account day after day thank you so much for these that was a fantastic um networking reach out so i kept that to show to you um the other thing that i will show you that's pretty cool and that is if you will um if you put in uh the university you're at and i apologize i just grabbed kansas because i know what's here i did this
• 43:00 - 43:30 last week you go to their page if you click on alumni and then you type in marketing it will show you and this particular university um has about i don't know it looks like close to 30 000 people who graduated from the university that work in marketing and it tells you where they work so if you choose a company you can go in here and the the
• 43:30 - 44:00 the vice president and let's see let's open lindsay's chief marketing officer right for a company that a lot of people in the kansas city area would want to work with is a graduate of the university so you can find people who graduated from your university and maybe right now you just want to follow that person so now i'm following lindsay and as lindsay posts or if we go to her activity we can see things like let's go to lindsay's posts um so lindsay hasn't
• 44:00 - 44:30 posted in seven months but she's active on the platform so we're probably not going to see a lot in our feed from lindsay but still a really good way to kind of establish um engagement with a person before you connect with them and then here is where you can go in and put things about the job search and so if we put in like marketing coordinator um and we can put in um i don't know we'll put in dallas
• 44:30 - 45:00 i'm not sure where you guys are so sorry about that um and i'm gonna go for jobs that were put in the past month because there's sometimes some old ones so there are over 2 000 jobs for marketing coordinators in the dallas fort worth area so i can go in i could turn on a job alert i could set it to email me every week what these job alerts are but i'm able to go in and take a look at all of
• 45:00 - 45:30 the responsibilities and qualifications and i can start reading these things right oh looky there experience using zoho a crm wordpress adobe photoshop and canva i've already mentioned canva once today right to tell you to go do your banner photo adobe photoshop you may be able to do like a quick i mean if these are jobs you want and they're mentioning these things learn about it now and work on this parallel to your um your academics all right so i've talked a lot
• 45:30 - 46:00 questions comments i wanted to hit the big rocks today so what other like cliche words do you recommend us not not putting on our uh about or our summary oh my gosh that's such a fantastic question so i'm gonna throw this back at you just a little bit um do you know
• 46:00 - 46:30 what cliche words people use that drive you crazy um like experience teamwork creativity well okay let me throw this back because that's you're right um and as you're giving those to me it's a cliche if you can't prove it right like i'm telling you i'm a linkedin expert if i walked in to this room an hour ago and said hi i'm anna i'm a linkedin expert you guys would have all rolled your eyes right which i would have too because anytime somebody
• 46:30 - 47:00 uses the word expert i'm always like push whatever am i literally the most like am i the person with the highest linkedin expertise that you know but do you want me to tell you that or what if i what if i have a video of me using linkedin or what if i have other people that are like anna changed my life with linkedin right like so i'm answering your question in a very long way be careful using words to
• 47:00 - 47:30 describe yourself because that's not necessarily your why you're trying to give your who and your what which we know a brand no like 96 percent of people do not believe advertising or what the product or service tells you about itself people believe what other people's experiences are about a brand right so you have to figure out how do you build that um social proof so when you say i'm
• 47:30 - 48:00 a strategic thinker it's not a cliche because that is true somebody in your season in life if you tell me you're a strategic thinker i'm be like child please what have you had to be strategic about at this point right but if you show me that you have been in positions or groups or maybe you're in some type of an organization where you have been strategic maybe you uh planned like a 5k or you know whatever that is if you can show me that show me where you were strategic because anything you put in your headline
• 48:00 - 48:30 anything you put in your about summary i'm going to scroll down and look for the proof of it um or if somebody else tells me this is one of the most strategic you know thinking interns we've ever had then i'm like okay maybe this person is a strategic thinker so i think to answer your question it was a fantastic question by the way because as marketers we are very much nervous about that messaging piece please just make sure you are not trying to describe yourself that's why i hate objectives and skill
• 48:30 - 49:00 sections at the tops of resumes because 90 of what people put in the skill sections are actually skills they're buzzwords or cliches to your point show me that in the bullet points under each of your levels of experience um the other thing i don't know if you notice i've got my strengths finders i've got my enneagram i've got my um myers-briggs those are things that are transferable into the workforce that they understand and i bet your career center offers some of those tests there's um val high five
• 49:00 - 49:30 test is a free one and quite honestly one of the best um so if you go to high5 assessment you can take that for free and it gives you a ton of really good insights and i've actually even gone down it shows you how to put that certification on your um profile i'll show you this really quick because i think this you have brought a really amazing point in terms of like how do i show you and um have proof about this rather than
• 49:30 - 50:00 saying so my high five strengths are storyteller does that surprise anyone today coach catalyst commander and brainstormer um so there's a real easy way to take that assessment get those back you can list them up in your profile um i already have like my clifton my myers-briggs my enneagram listed there so i chose to put my high five down here um but those the other thing i love about these assessments is not just like
• 50:00 - 50:30 take the enneagram or take the um myers-briggs and then put it away but look for threads look for consistencies look for things that you are predisposed in your personality or your practices or how you disseminate information or what motivates you and tell that story using those words too because until you have three or four jobs you're going to need a foundation for your story you're going to need a baseline or an origin story so think about that and don't get caught up in the word passion if you're sitting
• 50:30 - 51:00 there today and you're like holy crap like i don't even know what i want to do i'm trying not to grow up and people are asking me every day what i want to be when i grow up who cares 10 to 13 jobs by the time you're 35 you are in the best place you can possibly be in a global pandemic you are in college you are leveling up you are getting new skills and you have got some time before you enter this chaotic and disruptive world embrace that but use that time to reach out to people put yourself out there be vulnerable use your student tag and reach out and start
• 51:00 - 51:30 to find people that you can have conversations with or that will be super honest with you about yes i am in marketing and here are the things i'm worried about here's what keeps me awake at night but here's why i love my job and here's where i think things are about to change in marketing or here's where you know we've shifted everybody's talking about where they've shifted all their spin to like what are people in the marketing world in these professional jobs saying about influencers right like you guys are getting a certain message what is
• 51:30 - 52:00 the professional world saying about it those are all good questions you can ask somebody to help you determine if you're on the right path doing the things that you should be doing for a career that was a 27 minute answer to your really simple question i'm sorry about that that's a good question other questions things on your mind uh how to make a difference between linkedin and resume when it comes to our work level experience like what we should put on linkedin and then not just
• 52:00 - 52:30 like public page hours if we were there and was not in the pandemic i would hug you that was a excellent question how do you determine what to put on your linkedin and what to put on your resume i'm gonna tell you this linkedin also works through search engine search engine optimization you never know who's searching or what they're looking for so bulk it out put everything on linkedin i had a young man get hired at salesforce simply because he worked at lowe's during college and they
• 52:30 - 53:00 he was not in like the top 10 for the job he applied for but they had another customer facing role the hr person really liked him it wasn't on his resume that he worked part-time at lowe's but they went and looked at his linkedin and it was there and it was the differentiator they needed to say hey let's put caleb over here in this client-facing role instead of the one he's interviewing with and he had a better interview and he got hired so that wasn't a job to put on his resume
• 53:00 - 53:30 for that job that he was applying for it lowe's wasn't because again he was trying so hard to match his resume to the job description but what he did was he everything is on linkedin if you house everything on linkedin then you piece you you build the new resume for the job that you're applying for and when i tell you i mean this in all seriousness every single resume you upload should not be the one you have saved on your computer you should update it for every single
• 53:30 - 54:00 job you're applying for or it will not work it will not work now that doesn't it's not as labor as intensive it sounds because as you figure out what jobs you're wanting they're going to be somewhat similar but every organization has a different focus different set of requirements different expectations they have different things in their job description that you're going to have to tailor so think about linkedin as being like where you uh store all of your information like tell every story there
• 54:00 - 54:30 are people that are taking like you know trips and doing um mission work and they're building houses and they're they're volunteering for habitat for they're doing all these things they can speak all these languages they've been to these different countries that's not something that's maybe going to make it onto the resume but you definitely can tell that story on your linkedin they will go from the resume to the linkedin at some point i guarantee it so to answer your question every resume has to be the best fit for the job description but linkedin
• 54:30 - 55:00 can tell your whole story all the time got it it's a great question thank you for asking that we have five minutes left five minutes left till the end of the class time so uh maybe two more questions okay any other questions anything i talked about today seem unreasonable or impossible to you as you sit there today
• 55:00 - 55:30 do you believe me when i tell you that there is an entire workforce out there that would love to hear from you and if you would reach out as a college student you're like a golden unicorn to those people because do you know how many college students ever reach out is such a small number so go through that alumni of your of your college go to people who have set in the seats you're sitting in majoring in what you're majoring in reach out to somebody at a company you're really intrigued about
• 55:30 - 56:00 reach out to somebody just based on their job description just try it but make sure you go look right if they haven't been active on the platform in 90 days they may not be somebody that's super active you guys are better stalkers than i am and i can even take somebody's full name and the company they work for and do enough google searches to find their actual email address and when you email them drop the word student with questions right in the subject line and then don't
• 56:00 - 56:30 even you can say hello but put i am a college student at you know whatever make that the first line because when people get their email on their phone and it's truncated they don't want you to be fundraising they don't want you to be selling knives or funeral plots right they want to know what is it that you want and if you start with i am a student majoring in this and would love to ask you some questions i'm telling you they're going to show their friends they're going to think it's the coolest thing ever because college students today just don't reach
• 56:30 - 57:00 out and i get that and if you're struggling with like what do i ask or who should i do get a hold of me i will help you with that i promise you it's not as difficult or as intimidating as you think and if you'll do it one or two times now while you're in school with absolutely nothing to lose you will shed that like fear and intimidation in that imposter syndrome and then you will really have this skill built when it counts and that's when you really are looking for internships and jobs
• 57:00 - 57:30 any questions anna should i start a different ap account from lilly should you start a different one yeah if i want to switch to other jobs no because you're taking all of your experience with you all the things that make you you okay so everything on linkedin be active and you know what just like some of the
• 57:30 - 58:00 questions you guys asked about you know what are the keywords you need to show the work so for any assignments we ask for from you guys is show us the word and that also show people the efforts you have put in your life in yourself so anyway uh thank you anna i have no more questions we're going to let n go thank you so much for your pleasure time and working with us and even though you have this tech
• 58:00 - 58:30 issues and the class give me a few minutes okay so anyway thank you so much bye anna bye hey thank you okay so don't go always do
• 58:30 - 59:00 you