How to leverage your LinkedIn after your internship
Everything you have to know about the use of LinkedIn after your internship to get the most of it.
Hi, Ahmed here! each week I share actionable ideas about studying strategies, college life stories, and job search advice for students and fresh graduates.
If you missed the previous newsletter issue you can check it through this link:
Expected reading time: 5 minutes.
Hope you enjoy it.
I’ve been using LinkedIn constantly for the past year making connections, sharing ideas, and more.
When I first started, I thought I know everything that could be about LinkedIn but I’m just lazy to do it.
It turns out that LinkedIn power lay in using it constantly in every step in your career.
Today I’ll go though three things you have to do in LinkedIn after your internship. To not only show your impact and the work you did in your past internship but also to grow your network.
LinkedIn Recommendations
I can argue that the Recommendations section is one of the best ways that can help you secure jobs later in your career. Let’s imagine you’re a recruiter—what's the first thing you want to see when you scroll through my profile? The experience section, right?
But what about the second section? That's the Recommendations section.
This section serves as your social proof and testimonial about the value you bring to the table and the impact you made in your past jobs/internships.
Having a ton of recommendations makes it an easy decision for employers to be bet on you. And the best time to gather these recommendations is right after your internship.
You've just spent the past month working closely with your peers and managers. If you've built a strong rapport with them, they would likely be more than willing to recommend working with you.
Most students and interns might find it awkward to request recommendations, which means they miss out on the social proof that loudly and clearly about how competent you are. This is a testament that speaks volumes about your capabilities, 24 hours a day, every time someone views your profile.
Who you should ask for a recommendations
Your internship colleagues.
Your immediate supervisor.
Team members from other departments who you have worked with.
Everyone who worked with you enough to be able to give genuine and true recommendation for you.
How to request a great recommendations.
LinkedIn makes it easy to ask for a recommendation, all you’ve to to is:
Go to their profile
Click “More”
The “Ask for a recommendation”
Then they will ask you a few questions about where you worked together and then you could write a massage for context.
Here’s how it looks like.
To make sure you get a response you have to write a personalized message. Writing one could be hard and time consuming, so I made wrote a template for you to use as an inspiration.
Hi [Name],
It was a pleasure working with you and getting to know you over the past month at [Company Name]. I heard you get an extend offer for a full-time. Congrats!
I wanted to ask you for a quick favor, I'm updating my LinkedIn profile after the internship and I was wondering if you would be open to writing a LinkedIn recommendation about our time together at [Company Name].
I would truly appreciate your support and I would love to reciprocate and write you one as well. Working with you has taught me a great deal and it's the least that I can do for you.
Best,
Sending Connections Request
This might seem obvious but I have to talk about it.
The first thing you have to do while in the internship and after is sending connections request to everyone you have worked with and know you your work.
This just one of the internship hacks that we don’t recognize it’s value until late.
Researches shows that by getting referred you are 4x more likely to get hired and the easiest way to get referrals is through your network. The best way to build that network is with people who you have worked in your internship who recognize the value you bring.
Sharing Your Work in LinkedIn
You should be doing these while you’re in an internship but if you didn’t it’s never to late to start now.
You’ve spend time and effort working in your internship, why stop there? Go to the next step and share what you learned, the challenged, mistakes, and projects you have worked on.
It’s the easiest way to start building your brand early on.
And to help you, here’re 10 internship post ideas you can share right now.
Reflect on your last day at the company.
Share the goals you've set for yourself in your internship and what you achieved
Write about a colleague you've met during your internship and how they've influenced your growth.
Discuss how your internship has exposed you to technology and the impact it had on your work.
Share a lesson you've learned from a mistake.
Write about a new skill you've acquired during your internship.
Share your thoughts on the company culture and how it helped you in your internship.
Share a behind-the-scenes of your daily work and highlight the aspects you find most interesting.
Share an accomplishment you've achieved during your internship.
Write a post thanking your team for their support and guidance during your internship.
These are 10 ideas if you want to see more, check this LinkedIn post where I wrote 20 ideas for interns.
That’s it! Thank you for sticking to the end. 👋
Sincerely,
Ahmed Amin
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