I am already very proud of you for finding this blog. Lots of college students don’t even have a LinkedIn profile. And very few high school students take the time to set one up so you are way ahead of things.
According to Pew research, only 9% of high school students use LinkedIn. So, if you are going for a job with 100 applicants, you and eight others are probably the only ones on LinkedIn. That’s a good thing!
I know the trend is for students to shy away from using the same social media platforms their parents and us other old folks use. But remember that us old folks are probably the ones doing the hiring. It’s only going to help you stand out by showing up on the platforms we use. And on the flip side, old folks like myself should look at SnapChat and TikTok for creative video resume submissions.
Whether you plan to go to college or find a full-time job right out of high school, LinkedIn is a free tool to help you present a professional image to your future potential employers. It’s also a great way for recruiters to find you! I think it is the best social media platform for your career and job search.
LinkedIn gives you access.
Think of your LinkedIn profile as a doorway to your future. Seriously! Behind that door are millions of people, companies, and jobs that can help you have a great life!
If you read my blog on how to create a resume for high school students, you’ve got the cheat sheet for most sections of the profile. Use that new, professional email address to create your free LinkedIn account.
Note to the adults: If you’ve been working for years and never set up a LinkedIn profile, don’t leave! These tips will break it down for you and make it simple. It’s not too late!
Now, let’s get to the tips.
1. Create a LinkedIn Account
When you go to LinkedIn look in the upper right-hand corner of the page. Click on “Join Now.” You can sign up with your email and a password or use your Google account.
Make sure you use a professional email address for an account that you are checking regularly. LinkedIn will send you notifications that you don’t want to miss.
2. Upload Profile Photo
No need for a professional headshot. All of our mobile phones have sophisticated cameras. Get a friend to help you so it doesn’t look like a selfie but it’s a higher quality worthy of being your profile picture. Where a nice top, stand in front of a simple background, and take the picture close up to capture your face. It’s typically called a headshot, so you want a good picture of your head!
3. Set Up Your Contact Information
The email address you use when setting up your account will automatically display in this module. LinkedIn will show you your personal LinkedIn URL that you can add to your traditional resume.
You can choose to display a phone number and address. Personally, I only show my email. You will want to think about your own privacy concerns.
If you have your own website or blog, you can include that URL. You can also sync with messaging services and your Twitter account.
4. Write Your Headline
Your LinkedIn headline can be a summary sentence or a series of phrases or descriptors that best describes you. Think about what makes you unique. I talk about your personal value proposition in my blog post about how to write a cover letter. You might steal some words from that exercise for your headline.
What do you do now? What are you looking for? Have you figured out your career goals? What are you excited about in the future? What makes you different from the other high school students? Try to use words that will appeal to prospective employers. Your headline is one of the first things a recruiter will see.
Headline examples that might work for a high school student:
Creative high school sophomore seeking marketing internship
Resourceful, honor student looking for entry-level sales position
Motivated | Willing to Hustle | Grit
Honor Student | Strong Work Ethic | Creative Writing
Dependable | Determined | Driven
5. Summary
You are in high school so don’t stress out about this. No one expects you to have a ton of experience yet. Use this section to tell the story about what motivates you and what you want.
I am {your name} and I am a student at {your high school}.
I am involved in ABC club/team/activity and would love to find a related job in XYZ industry.
I have been playing elite volleyball for eight years and I love science. I hope to pursue a career in physical therapy.
I am actively involved in student council and Spanish club and hope to work in business.
I help manage my household and care for my siblings in support of my single-mother. I hope to find a job in the restaurant industry to assist with financial support as well.
You can also write more conversationally and candidly if that makes you feel more comfortable.
I have been playing video games for as long as I can remember. I have been learning C++, Java, HTML5 and CSS3. I would love a job as a video game tester and eventually I would like to create my own game Zombie Cobra Slayer.
I love being part of the cheerleading squad, performing, and promoting school spirit. I think this experience will eventually help me find a job in marketing. I would love a job where I could use my public speaking skills.
6. Experience
Hopefully, you have already created a resume that details your work history. That homework will make it easy to fill in the LinkedIn experience section. Maybe even copy and paste.
When you click to edit your experience, you will get a pop-up window for each job. You will need to enter:
Title: This is where you type in your job title. Food server, landscaper, cashier, etc.
Employment type: You will be given a pull-down menu to choose from options like full-time, part-time, seasonal, internship, etc.
Company name: As you type in this field, LinkedIn should give you options to choose from, so that your profile will be connected to your employer’s LinkedIn profile. Many businesses have a LinkedIn company profile.
Location: This is the city, state, country where you work.
Do you still work here? You will be given the option to check the box if you are still employed with this company.
Start and end date: You will be given a calendar widget to enter the month and year of your employment. If you checked the box that you are still working for this employer, it will display your start date to present automatically.
Industry: Do your best to choose the appropriate industry for your employer.
Description: This is a large, open field where you can type up to 2,000 characters. You can follow the same format as on your resume and convert your bullet points into bullets in this section. You can also write a narrative in paragraph form. Try to use the same keywords that might appear in a job description. This will help your profile show up in search results when recruiters and hiring managers search LinkedIn.
And don’t stress out if this section looks a little scarce. It’s ok! You are taking early steps towards your own career development. I predict you will be filling in this section with some awesome jobs in the near future!
7. Education
Many schools have their own LinkedIn profile so that the teachers and school staff can link to it from their own profiles. Of all the fields that are available in the education section, the only one that is required is the School Name. It’s up to you how much other detail you want to include.
If you took my advice in the blog about writing your first resume in high school, and you created a worksheet with all the items you might want to include in your resume, you are already a step ahead! I would put everything you can in this section. It’s free, and you are not limited to one page.
School: Before you enter this, you will want to search LinkedIn to see if your school has a profile you can link to and then type in the name the same way they have it listed. If you decide to go to college, many schools have university pages as well.
Degree: You can just write high school here.
Field of Study: You can write “General Studies” here or if you have taken electives in a specific field you want to highlight, go ahead and type. LinkedIn will give you a pull down menu to choose from.
Start Date/End Date: Same date widget.
Grade: This is an open-ended field you can type in or leave blank.
Activities and Societies: This is another open-ended field you can type in 500 characters. Think about all of your extracurricular activities. You may want to do a draft of this in a separate Word or Google Doc so you can edit it to meet the character limit. Then copy and paste.
Description: Another open-ended field with 1,000 character limit. You can tell more of your high school story and talk about your favorite electives and school projects, and how they relate to your future job or what you may want to study in college.
Please note the fields with character limits do not require you to meet that maximum. You can write a sentence or two. Don’t feel the need to fill the space. Just write what you think is relevant to a future boss.
8. Volunteering
This widget is similar to Experience and Education mentioned above. You can simply write the organization and your role with no description. It’s up to you. Without a lot of real work experience, this is a place to stand out if you do have experience with volunteer work and community service. But then again, it’s ok if you don’t have anything here yet too. If you are working your way through school, you don’t have time to volunteer. That is ok!
9. Recommendations
This is a section in the LinkedIn profile that many adults don’t even take advantage of! So, if you do, again you will be a stand out! I believe this is an important part of your professional online presence. It just takes a little work.
These recommendations are brief referral stories people write about their colleagues, their bosses, employers, and vendors. Like a reference.
If you have applied for a job, the employer may have asked you for three references. Your future boss was planning to contact those people to ask them questions about you, your work ethic, performance, and personality to see if you might be a fit. These LinkedIn recommendations are a little bit like that just in writing.
Usually, you have to ask someone to write a recommendation for you. Most people don’t do that proactively. They also have to have their own LinkedIn profile.
It’s not going to hurt to ask a couple teachers to do this. Or a coach or boss from a current job.
This process is often an exchange. I write one for you and you write one for me. You might offer to write one for your teachers.
Then, moving forward, you will have to remember to ask people to write one for you in each new role. I have done this with past bosses, my co-workers, my vendors, and people who have reported to me.
10. Skills
This skills section is an optional section you can add to your profile. You will get a pop-up window that will make some suggestions about skills based on the information you have already added. It’s pretty cool artificial intelligence to help you get started.
If you don’t like the suggestions, you can begin typing in the open field. The system will show you the options you have to choose from. As a high school student, I could see a few of these being potential skills:
Teamwork
Time Management
Collaborative Work
Communication
Graphic Design
11. Add a Background
The background image appears at the top of your profile. It’s the strip that appears behind your profile pic and above your name and headline. It’s one more detail to help you make a good first impression and stand out from the others. It also makes your page more visually appealing.
If you click on the little camera icon in the top right-hand corner, you open up the widget that allows you to customize your image.
Photo: You can upload a photo of you to show a little of your personality. A friend who loves to travel used an image of her at the top of a mountain. Another friend uses an image from his hometown.
Custom image: You can flex your graphic design skills and show an image with your favorite motivational quote, your personal logo, or your headline. If you design something special, be sure to account for the circle where your profile pic will appear. You don’t want to block anything important.
LinkedIn library: You can also choose from a small library of free images that show your support for diversity, equity, inclusion, and more.
You should note this is part of the profile that many adults don’t take advantage of. There is a lot of flexibility with these. Landscape pictures, quotes, and graphics with descriptive adjectives can all show a little of your personality and help your profile to stand out.
12. Connections
Now that you have created your LinkedIn profile, you need to begin connecting with other people on the platform. Another word for this process is professional networking. Make a list of the people in your life who you think might be on LinkedIn. You never know who might be able to help you get a job in the future!
Use the search bar at the top of the page to type in their name. If they come up, you can click to view their profile. And then click the blue button “Connect.” Another pop-up window will give you the option to add a personal note to your connection request. I always suggest you add the note. It can be simple.
“Hi Miss Smith! I am starting to build my professional network, and I would love to connect with you. Thanks!”
Building your connections is one of the most valuable aspects of LinkedIn. It’s a great resource that makes it very easy to build and maintain professional relationships.
Next Steps
Ok, that was a lot of work! You’ve got your basic LinkedIn profile started! Now people can find you online and you will be able to look for internships and jobs. You can start following other LinkedIn members to learn more about the working world and all your new options. You can also search job postings and start networking.
There are additional sections you can add that include license and certifications, courses, projects, honors and awards, and test scores.
For now, take a break. Exhale. And dream about those cool new jobs coming your way for your future career! You’ve got a huge head start for future career success!
Congratulations! You are one of very few elite high schoolers who have made the effort and are set up to enjoy the benefits of LinkedIn.
