Why Your LinkedIn Matters in High School: The New Face of Personal Branding

Personal Branding on LinkedIn can help students achieve a bright professional career. Personal branding is underrated. Especially among students, branding on LinkedIn is not very popular. Contrary to popular belief that LinkedIn branding is important only for professionals, students, too, can also derive significant advantages from building their presence on the platform. From boosting visibility to expanding connections and leveraging opportunities, the platform offers a range of benefits that can help students build attractive professional careers aligned with their interests. Here are the complete details of why students need to build their brands on LinkedIn:

a) Enhanced Recognition: A carefully crafted LinkedIn profile can boost the visibility of students’ profiles significantly. It helps employees and recruiters discover potential candidates and pay attention to the skills and competencies these prospects bring to the table. Students can choose to optimize their profile with keywords and land a lucrative internship or job opportunity in the field of their interest. Experts also suggest that sharing content, writing articles, and participating in surveys can help students take their engagement on LinkedIn to the next level, thereby amplifying their chances of being noticed by aligned professionals.

b) Networking Opportunities: As they say, "Your Network is Your Networth", LinkedIn branding can help students make new connections, network with industry stalwarts, and secure entry into professional circles that are otherwise hard to access. Students can connect with alumni and make relationships to brighten their prospects of entering into emerging areas and sunrise sectors. Personal branding also helps aspirants connect with mentors and influencers, something that can elevate the success journey in the professional world by many notches.

c) Showcasing Expertise: Students can add projects, internships, and allied accomplishments to their LinkedIn profiles. This provides proof of their abilities and demonstrates which skills they are good at, besides signalling the recruiters their intent to join the particular sector and the industry. These activities also help students remain up to speed with contemporary developments and contribute to professional circles they want to be part of. These activities also take the engagement of students with professionals to a new high and brighten their chances of becoming leading figures in the sector or industry they want to excel.

d) Lifelong learning: By being involved in brand-building on LinkedIn, students can benefit from the aspect of lifelong learning. LinkedIn is a vast platform that offers a complete constellation of professional networking services and opportunities. It also allows aspirants to use tools, learn technologies, and get exposure from across the sectors of the economy. In other words, the platform encourages users to select the field of their choice and excel in it with lifelong learning. The branding efforts on LinkedIn also allow students to broaden their horizons and achieve their professional goals with aplomb.

e) Career Tools and Certifications: LinkedIn is a great place to learn advanced tools for making progress in the professional world. Students can also earn certifications by enrolling in courses of their choice on the LinkedIn Learning platform. These certifications are valued by employers across the industry verticals and can play an important role in shaping their career success over the years besides making them apt in dealing with contingencies of an evolving business environment.

f) Long-Term Value: Starting branding from school days will ensure that students get a decisive edge in communicating with stakeholders in the professional world. The early foray also ensures that their prospects of achieving success in the professional world grow over the period of time. The headstart that students achieve in terms of networking and building relationships on LinkedIn can prove instrumental in ensuring their long-term success. In fact, this early window of opportunity ensures that students entering the corporate world have enough opportunities to leverage and build on for a successful career.

Branding on LinkedIn could prove to be the most important decision, having long-term ramifications on the professional careers of students. In addition to building a strong brand, students can expand their networks and connect with relevant industry professionals by branding on LinkedIn. LinkedIn can also enhance students’ visibility among professional circles by highlighting their skills and competencies, thereby offering the right platform for selecting and hiring talent. Summarily, students should start early in building their brand on LinkedIn and make full use of the platform to reach new heights of success in their professional careers.

Authored by: Kalpesh Banker, Managing Partner at EduShine Search Partners