Career: Building a Professional Image

Choosing to come to Penn State was a great first decision.  Now that you’re here, you will have four, sometimes five, years to learn as much as possible in order to secure the career of your dreams.  There are a lot of things you can do to increase your chances of landing that dream position—an important one being putting your best foot forward.  Using professional social networking tools, such as LinkedIn, is a great way to showcase your professional achievements and allow potential employers, managers, and colleagues to learn about your experiences beyond the context of your resume.  

During your time at Penn State you will complete many semester-long projects including written reports and photographs.  Many hours of hard work will be sunk into these projects so why not add them to your professional portfolio?  In addition to these you will gain leadership positions, internship experiences, work experiences, sometimes publish research write-ups and more!  Crafting a concise paragraph or abstract summary about the project, experience, or research is all that is needed.  Simply add a picture and attach the written reports so that if someone is interested in reading more in depth about one of your achievements all the information is conveniently located.  It is easy to take a few hours to update your professional page with such achievements after each semester.  This way, your profile will remain current and accurately reflect your potential for future successes.

Having a LinkedIn page will also benefit you when preparing for interviews, career fairs, and networking dinners.  You can simply skim your page to refresh your memory and arm yourself with talking points.  Family members may also enjoy browsing your page  and it will give you something to show during the holidays when ever curious relatives ask “What did you learn this semester?”.  Overall, if you are willing to make a small time investment in setting up an account and you are willing to update your page periodically, incorporating a LinkedIn page into your professional portfolio will bring many added benefits to help further your dream career.    

By: Michaella Caruso