As a young professional, you have more years ahead of you than behind you, and as they say … the world is your oyster.
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”– Benjamin Franklin
As a former K-12 teacher and proud mother of two millennial girls, Sara and Christina, I love interacting with younger generations. It’s exciting to see what my former students and friends of my daughters are now doing in their lives. It’s also great to have the opportunity to meet new young professionals.
For me, this last week of January seems to include interacting with a lot of younger folks with the online summit focused on tips for budding entrepreneurs, local speakers I have lined up, and my invitation to present Maximizing the Power of LinkedIn with the Young Professional Suburban Network at the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce.
Younger generations have grown up as digital natives, while my boomer generation is considered to be digital immigrants. Personally, I love using and teaching tech to anyone of any age and I also love learning new tech from anyone of any age.
There is something called Reverse Mentoring, which is where a professional friendship is established between a younger and older person who exchange ideas, skills, knowledge, and understanding. You don’t know what you don’t know, so start a new friendship and learn from someone in another generation.
I have no doubt that young people can easily figure out how to navigate LinkedIn, but they probably do not know strategies, best practices, tips, and tricks about the platform unless they have been taught.
In the world of K-12 and higher education, although environments for teaching and learning, so many students are graduating without LinkedIn profiles or sparse LinkedIn profiles, as noted in a previous article about College Grads and LinkedIn.
So many teachers have not learned the importance of the platform and the necessity of networking to build careers and therefore, the students are ill prepared upon graduation. For any student who does not yet have a LinkedIn profile, they should see a previous deck packed with great resources.
LinkedIn is so incredibly important for one’s career not to mention essential for jobseekers. You need to build your profile so that you can gather recommendations as well as skills and endorsements even if you are considering a career in the nonprofit world.
Young professionals also need to know how important networking is to their career. It should be a habit. You have to make the time no matter how busy you are and LinkedIn provides that online networking opportunity in addition to the in person networking.
If you are a young professional or young at heart and want to meet the same, make sure you come to Montgomery County on Thursday night with the LinkedIn app downloaded on your phone so you can connect one on one or with everyone at the event using Find Nearby. You never know who you will meet! They could be the link to your next opportunity.
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Do not neglect managing your career and your career documents, including your LinkedIn profile, from the beginning of your career onward and make networking a habit. A simple start would be with a Bronze membership.
If you want to engage in career management in a group setting, save the date of Saturday February 1st for an all day accelerator in King of Prussia. We will walk with you along your career management journey!
NEXT STEPS
- Subscribe to my newsletter on LinkedIn™ for bright ideas on how to manage your career.
- If you need a resume or LinkedIn™ profile to get you to your next step, book a call to chat!
- Join as a member at https://greatcareers.org/membership of the #1 business networking association on the Philadelphia Business Journal’s Book of Lists four years in a row!
- To support our charity at KeepOnSharing.com use the referral code Career
- Follow #GreatCareersPHL
AUTHOR BIO
Lynne M. Williams is the Executive Director of the Great Careers Network, a volunteer-run 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides career development and networking connections for 1) job seekers in career transition, including veterans, and 2) employed and self-employed for career management.
Aside from writing keyword-focused content for ATS resumes and LinkedIn™ profiles, Lynne is writing her doctoral dissertation on LinkedIn™ for Job Seekers. She is a contributing author on “Applying to Positions” in Find Your Fit: A Practical Guide to Landing the Job You Love, along with the late Dick Bolles, the author of What Color is Your Parachute?, and is also a speaker on career topics.
