In recent years, social media has expanded into the professional employment market, bringing with it a new opportunity for candidates to develop relationships with possible employers. With LinkedIn obviously being the leader in this space, we have brought together some advice for key areas of your LinkedIn profile to give you an advantage over other candidates.
1. Profile Picture
The profile picture is an important element of your LinkedIn profile – and this is backed up by LinkedIn’s own statistics stating that people with profile pictures are 14 times more likely to be viewed by others. We must remember that this is potentially the first time your employer sees you and first impressions are important in this space. We would recommend a professional looking image that demonstrates you as a potential candidate. A possible option is a graduation image or a nice headshot with a plain background. A high-quality photo is also critical as a low-resolution image doesn’t leave a very positive impression.
2. Headline
The headline section should be short and simple. This will be displayed with your image when a potential employer is searching for candidates. We would recommend showing your degree or master's title along with a sentence that shows you are available for employment.
3. About
Concise and valuable. This is the key for this section. Remember we want to make life easy for visitors to our profile and provide only information that is needed. A secondary point to remember is that LinkedIn keeps track of keywords in your profile to assist with other users who are searching. Try to include anything particularly unique about your experience here.
Intro – Describe yourself. Who are you and what are you offering?
I am a recent graduate of biomedical engineering from the University of X. I am a highly motivated, self-starter, who is an avid problem solver. I am seeking employment opportunities within the medical device industry.
Core – Have you industry experience from placement/ internships? Do you have any experience in a previous work setting you could reference if no relevant engineering experience is available? Such as being head salesclerk at a local store. If you have not had a previous job, focus more on academia.
I have previous industry experience as a student placement at Y. I worked to support a large-scale manufacturing line during my time here.
As part of my studies, I completed a capstone project where I developed new test fixturing for analyzing the effect of mechanical loading on mock 3D printed joints. This involved extensive prototyping and CAD modelling.
Closer – Concise. To the point.
If you would like to speak more to me regarding an opportunity, please reach out.
4. Skills and Endorsements
Industry relevant. Focus on the fundamentals.
- Time management
- Solidworks or other relevant CAD software.
- Problem-solving
- Presentation
- Research
- Teamwork
- Communication (Verbal and Written)
- Microsoft Office (Break them out individually also. Excel, PowerPoint, Word etc.)
Other skills that may apply depending on experience.
- Lab experience
- Chemical handling
- Finite Element Analysis
- 3D Printing
- Tool making
- Fixture development
- Mechanical testing
Try to accumulate endorsements from people you have worked with, college classmates would be a particularly good source of these.
5. Experience
The experience section should state any positions you have held in a professional setting. Add descriptions to the sections highlighting some of your key tasks from your work. The examples we have provided below demonstrate how you can leverage typical part time jobs into an opportunity to showcase some positive professional traits to an employer.
Examples:
“I worked part time at X for 3 years. Here I performed tasks assisting in the daily running of the store such as updating the sales board, serving customers, and dealing with any queries or concerns raised by them. This role gave me great satisfaction supporting the store and ensuring customers left with the best experience possible with any issues they had resolved”
The above statement demonstrates:
Responsibility and ownership
Dealing with the public
Sales
Problem-solving
Achieving targets
“In my role at X, I assembled bikes and completed the safety checks needed before the bike could leave the store. Along with organizing the daily builds at customer requests. This would be completed by the team to achieve the task on time and to the highest quality.”
The above statement demonstrates:
Teamwork
Time management
Responsibility and ownership
Dealing with the public
Technical application
As you can see from the above examples experience can be made relevant to different roles, this can prove key to obtaining your first job without prior industry experience.
6. Education
This section provides the background of your education. Here you can show your school and the degree you have obtained. Any additional courses should also be entered here, as well as any academic accolades if applicable.
7. Connections
Like all social media networks, LinkedIn can assist you in building a strong list of connections within the industry that will continue to grow throughout your career. The best starting point is adding your classmates. This may come in handy years in the future when it can be difficult to track down former colleagues/ classmates to contact. Following Medtech companies is also advisable as it will help keep you up to date with relevant news and stories from the industry. While job hunting, think of adding recruitment agencies and HR employees within your target companies. With this strategy, you will be able to stay up to date with roles that become available within your desired company and make it easy for the right people to find you.
8. LinkedIn Premium
LinkedIn Premium is another option available to people who are job hunting. It has some great benefits such as allowing you to send in mails to people outside your network but purchasing this subscription shouldn’t be top of your priorities by any means. Instead, stick to the framework provided in this post and our other job-hunting blogs before proceeding with any sort of paid subscription.
If you desire to learn more, please read though our other posts or shoot us a message on LinkedIn.
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