Welcome to Week 3 where we will be looking at the theme of Connecting Up.

There are many professional networking platforms out there at the moment but one of the more established players is LinkedIn. While LinkedIn has sometimes become a source of humour with its incessant invites and reminder emails, it does have a lot of value especially when it comes to having one place to show off yourself and your skills, as well as connecting with interesting new people.

Check out this video for a quick overview of the basics of LinkedIn.

Video transcript

Here’s a helpful LinkedIn overview handout too.

By maintaining a professional looking LinkedIn profile, you not only have a handy place for people to find you if they Google you but you also increase your chances of someone finding you and your research and reaching out to collaborate on a project or new piece of research. The key thing is to make sure that your LinkedIn profile is accurate, up-to-date and represents you in the best way possible. After all, it is an online version of the real you so do yourself justice!

Thing 7 activities

Set up a LinkedIn account and complete your profile

Connect with some interesting people

Join an interest group

Write about blog post about using LinkedIn for (possibly) the first time

Do you like LinkedIn? Do you hate it? Or are you not fussed either way?

Thing 7 learning outcomes

You should understand LinkedIn as a networking platform

You should be able to identify the pros and cons of LinkedIn

You should be able to apply LinkedIn use to your personal life

You should have had the opportunity to explore using LinkedIn

You should have reflected on Thing 7 through blogging

Image: Alan Levine