On mobile? Don’t forget to read your location director’s letter or the other articles in this semester’s newsletter!
By Grossnickle Career Services Center
Trying to land your dream career out of the gate is a tall order. But here’s the good news: There are roughly 11 million job openings per month in America at any given time. Sure, you don’t want all those jobs, but you want some of them—and some of those employers want you!
LinkedIn connects qualified candidates with companies and organizations that crave top talent. With a little help from LinkedIn, you’ll be well on your way to snagging a seat at a desirable professional table. Rather bring your own chair or build your own table? Great! LinkedIn is a social platform based around occupational interests regularly updated with resources for all branches of professionalism.
Searching for a job can seem like a daunting task. More than a quarter of professionals say they have no time to search for new opportunities.
But worry not, with search alerts you can get notifications and updates to a saved search via email or shared with you on LinkedIn. Use advanced search filters to narrow down opportunities by industry, location, experience level and more. Once your filtered search is set, simply create the alert.
Let recruiters know you’re open to new opportunities by simply flipping a switch on your LinkedIn profile. It’s called Open Candidates, and yes, it’s that easy. Open Candidates is accessible from the “Preferences” tab on the LinkedIn Jobs home page.
By flipping the switch, you privately signal to recruiters that you’re interested in new opportunities. Don’t forget to update your career interests. This helps you appear in the search results that recruiters are regularly scouring. Additionally, this helps inform the daily job recommendations LinkedIn sends you and surfaces on the jobs homepage.
One of the easiest ways for students and alumni to make connections is through the LinkedIn Alumni tool. It’s an easy way to explore people who graduated from your same school, where they work now and in what cities. Simply search for your school and select “see alumni” to get started. You can access career paths for more than 23,000 colleges and universities worldwide.
Also, don’t forget to check out Columbia College’s own LinkedIn page with more than 36,000 alumni! In addition, the Columbia College Alumni Association’s website also has a robust page of career-services resources.
