Career Tips: A Brief Discussion on LinkedIn (Part 1)

Let's begin with a basic understanding of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social platform focused on professional and business networking. While some people refer to it as "Facebook for the workplace," I don’t agree with this analogy for two reasons: first, LinkedIn was founded in 2003, earlier than Facebook; second, its functions and purposes are distinct, and comparing them directly may lead to misunderstandings.

Using LinkedIn to upload your resume is mainly for job hunting or expanding business opportunities (with job seeking being the more common use, while business development is typically done by managers or salespeople). Some people also use LinkedIn to build their personal brand, but that’s a topic for later. LinkedIn is widely used by international companies and professionals, and everyone is familiar with the platform’s rules. Adding colleagues and friends as connections is a common practice. If you haven’t created an account yet and worry that colleagues in your industry or company might think you're planning to change jobs (even if you are), you can delay adding them as connections. Ideally, start building your network during your academic years and gradually expand it.

When setting up your account, you’ll need to provide information such as your name, position, company, photo, and education. These details may seem personal, but the goal of LinkedIn is to allow others to discover your professional background and understand your abilities, which in turn can create more opportunities. You can control the visibility of your information depending on your preferences—showcase your strengths, but not all information needs to be fully public. It’s best to present the best version of yourself.

Name: Use your real name and choose the common form of address.

Photo: A professional photo usually means wearing a suit and looking directly at the camera, which works well for more formal industries like accounting or engineering. For fields like marketing, advertising, public relations, or entertainment (e.g., models or hosts), you can opt for a more personalized photo. Avoid changing your photo frequently, as this can make it harder for familiar contacts to recognize you.

Email: Use a professional email dedicated to job hunting, one that you check regularly. Avoid using unprofessional email addresses like "veryhandsometam@gmail.com" (and definitely avoid using Gmail addresses).

Position: If you have a department name, include it to make your role easier to recognize, such as "Analyst Programmer" or "Sales Coordinator." A specific and professional job title helps attract the attention of recruiters.

Company: Larger companies often have their own Company Pages. When entering your company name, make sure to select the correct entry, as this helps your profile get noticed by industry peers and headhunters.

Education: Just the name of the school and major is usually enough. There's no need to list your exact grades unless you are a recent graduate with exceptional results (e.g., First Honors). If you don’t want to disclose your age, avoid filling in your birth year or graduation year.

Work Experience: As you age, early work experiences like internships or part-time jobs can be omitted. If possible, start listing your work experience from higher-level positions to avoid revealing your age.

Connections: On LinkedIn, "Connections" are not the same as friends. There aren’t many true friends among workplace acquaintances. LinkedIn encourages you to add contacts from your email address book, and you can decide whether to send an invitation when you see someone's name. Personally, I believe it’s better to add more connections than fewer—aim for at least 500 connections (why 500? This will be explained in the next part). Before completing your LinkedIn profile, it’s recommended to skip adding connections for now and wait for the next article for a detailed guide.

Finally, a tip to prevent your colleagues from seeing changes to your profile while you’re editing it: go to "Privacy & Settings," click "Manage," and then in "Profile," enable "Turn on/off your activity broadcasts" and uncheck "Let people know when you change your profile, make recommendations, or follow companies." This way, others won’t see your updates in real time. There are other useful settings that can help as well. For those who don’t have an account, feel free to refer to this guide, and those who already have one can share their experiences.

The next article will cover more details.