Social media is all consuming. We post what we’re doing every second of every day, no matter how embarrassing or raunchy it is. It’s all for the favs. But now, it’s time to do it for your future. All of your friends have made a LinkedIn account, and it just seems like the next logical step for you. How hard could it be? It’ll be fun!
Wrong and wronger.
It’s not like making a Facebook or a finsta. You don’t just make a password and pick a cute picture and call it a day. You gotta buckle down and make time in your schedule to do it. Pull out that resumé you made at 3 AM for your business class because you will need it. It’s just as tedious and time consuming as crafting that resume, but instead, it’s on a confusing profile interface. Great!
First, you type in your name. Do you put your middle name? Do you leave it out? If you have a nickname, do you still put your full first name? It’s even harder than when you were picking how many X’s to put in your AIM username. Speaking of which, don’t use [email protected] when you’re signing up. It takes south of 10 minutes to create a gmail that’s as simple and professional as [email protected]. That should be a given. Once you’ve figured out the most professional sounding version of your name, it’s time to pick out a picture. That should be easy. You take a ton of pictures!
Wrong yet again.
First of all, there are very few pictures of just yourself. Cropping yourself out of a picture from formal can be a place holder, but seriously. It’s an issue. If you’re not posing with a person, you are posing with a drink. Do I really drink that much? you think to yourself as you flash back to last weekend and every weekend before that, cringing. Maybe it is more of a problem than you thought.
Next is filling out your resumé. You love to talk about yourself, so with the most positive mindset you can muster, you start adding in your school and work experience. Do you put that you worked at Dairy Queen when you were 16? It’s irrelevant, but you don’t want employers to think you were a spoiled brat who has never worked a day in her life. Moving on, what are your skills and hobbies? Ummm, you can shotgun a beer pretty fast. You know your lighting and angles really well when it comes to selfies. There’s really not much you can think of. Just put Microsoft Word and move on.
Beware of being endorsed. Endorsing is a feature on LinkedIn with the intention to let employers know what skills others see in you. Instead, your friends from high school will use it to put the weirdest possible skills on your profile just to fuck with you. Super helpful!
Finally, you’ve finished. Now ignore it for the next three months except for when you periodically deny requests from creeps. Gotta love social media..
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Ali Hin
A born and raised Jersey girl, she can always be found covered in sand and pizza sauce. Her personal brand is "that girl." She prefers wine in bottles because she thinks outside of the box. Send fan mail to [email protected] or by smoke signal.
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