Analyzing LinkedIn for Career Development: A Comprehensive Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of LinkedIn as a tool for career planning, particularly for students. It begins by outlining the advantages of using LinkedIn, such as networking opportunities, job email alerts, and the ability to conduct company research. The report then identifies common mistakes made by users when creating their profiles, including poor photos, incomplete headlines, missing summaries, and cursory career histories. Based on these findings, the report recommends strategies for optimizing a LinkedIn profile, such as using clear language, providing detailed experience, and leveraging suggestion boxes. The conclusion emphasizes the benefits of LinkedIn for graduates and businesses, highlighting its role in job searching and achieving career goals. The report offers valuable insights for students seeking to build a strong professional presence and navigate their career paths effectively.

LinkedIn

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Introduction
Career planning is a process through which a person set their career goal and makes
the path to achieve the success. In this report, the focuses will be given on the topic of
“planning for a career”. LinkedIn is taken into consideration in making the networks for the
job. LinkedIn is the world largest professional network; it has more than 562 million users.
This application is in more than the 200 countries and territories. It creates an economic
opportunity for every member of the global workforce (LinkedIn, 2018). The main aim of the
application is to connect the world’s professionals to make them successful.
At the beginning of the report, the advantages of LinkedIn will be discussed which is
useful for the students. After that, the mistakes will be discussed which is done by the person
at the time of developing the profile. In the last section of the report, recommendation will be
provided which is useful for the students.
Advantages
Get connected
LinkedIn is all about networking; it focused on to connects the professional and
businesses with the network effectively. It provides the decent feature from which the people
can find their industry. It is beneficial for the graduates to build the good relations with the
each other. Without walking here and there, the students can easily build their number of
connection in which field where they want to serve. This network helps the students in
finding the perfect and suitable jobs for them. Through the networks, students send a request
with their profile from which the professionals match their profiles and shortlisted them for
the jobs (Dummies, 2018).

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Getting Job email alters
Once the college students have created their professional profile on LinkedIn they get
the emails that alter the students by providing the notification of job alter. This email alters
help the student to quickly check the notification of recommended jobs. Student and the job
seeker will able to see their notification on their homepage as quickly they log in the account.
It is the major advantage which can easily take by the students at the time of finding jobs. It is
useful for the student because the students did not waste their time here and there and easily
get the recommendations for the job which helps to achieve the successful path.
Conducting company research
It is one of the biggest advantages of using LinkedIn for the students, by login the
account the students and employers can easily check out the pages of their targeted
employers. They can conduct a research of the targeting companies like their hiring process
and reviews of people. This type of research helps the student to update the profile according
to requirements of targeting Company. The student can prepare as per the hiring process of
their dream company (Undercover Recruiter, 2018).
Mistakes
Bad Photo and Headline
The unfortunate photo encourages the employer to turn off the page of a person. It is
essential to post the picture which clearly shows the face of the person to the visitor. The
headline is an important thing of a profile because the visitor first sees the headlines. Students
take it normally and leave it blank or it can fill the column with the current job title. People
upload the pictures in which face of the person is not clear for the visitors. Bad photo and bad
headline affect the profile of the company (Lippe, 2018).

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No summary
The summary column which is at the top of the LinkedIn profile is necessary to fill but
people leave it blank. This summary requires the current situation of the person whether it is
experienced or not. If it has the experience in some field then it fills the designation which
attracts the visitor to see the whole profile of the visitor (Themuse, 2018). The column of
summary tells the story of the person but the blank column of the summary damage the
profile of the person.
Cursory Career History
It is observed that the visitor always seek to know about the career history of the
people from where they came and in which field they have the experience or did the
internship. The incomplete information stops the employer to appoint the employee or it turns
off the page of the person and shortlisted the other person. Cursory career history affects the
visitor profile.
Language
It is essential to use the English language so everyone gets to understand the profile. It
always makes sure that the content should be clear and understandable. So, the visitor can
take the decision easily. But when they did not understand the language of the person then
they turn off the page.
Recommendation
From the above analysis, it has been recommended that a person has to analyse the
profile of a professional person or it analyse the sample profile to make their own account.
LinkedIn has to provide the suggestion box from which the people get the hint that how they
can update their page (Marr, 2015).

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The person can use the English language because English is an international language
so the visitor can easily understand and check out the qualification and qualities as per the
requirement of the company (Udenze, 2017).
The person should tell about their experience and interesting field according to his
qualification. So the visitor can easily understand the job requirement of the person (Zide,
Elman, & Shahani-Denning, 2014). It helps the visitor to easily match the requirement of the
company with the profile of the person.
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it has been seen that LinkedIn is beneficial for the graduate
students and the businesses as well. It helps the students in finding jobs in their targeting
industry. The students can easily conduct the research their target industry like hiring process
and others. The students did the mistake at the time of editing their profile. To reduce the
mistakes; the student can take the help of suggestion boxes. LinkedIn helps the students in
getting a job and in achieving the goals of their life.

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References
Dummies. (2018). The Benefits of Using LinkedIn. Retrieved from:
https://www.dummies.com/business/marketing/social-media-marketing/the-benefits-
of-using-linkedin/
LinkedIn. (2018). About LinkedIn. Retrieved from: https://about.linkedin.com/
Lippe, J. (2018). The 5 Biggest Mistakes You’re Making in Your LinkedIn Profile. Retrieved
From: https://studentloanhero.com/featured/biggest-mistakes-making-linkedin-profile/
Marr, B. (2015). How To Create A Killer LinkedIn Profile That Will Get You Noticed.
Retrieved From: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-create-killer-linkedin-profile-
get-you-noticed-bernard-marr
Themuse. (2018). 11 Sloppy LinkedIn Mistakes That You're Too Qualified to Make. Retrieved
from: https://www.themuse.com/advice/11-sloppy-linkedin-mistakes-that-youre-too-
qualified-to-make
Udenze, S. (2017). Investigating academics‟ Awareness & Use Of Linkedin for Professional
Networking. International Journal of Advanced Research and Publications. Retrieved
from: http://www. ijarp. org/online-paperspublishing/oct2017. html, 1(4), 148-152.
Undercover Recruiter. (2018). 7 Ways College Students Can Benefit from LinkedIn. Retrieved
from: https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/7-ways-college-students-can-benefit-
linkedin/

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Zide, J., Elman, B., & Shahani-Denning, C. (2014). LinkedIn and recruitment: How profiles
differ across occupations. Employee Relations, 36(5), 583-604.