Organizational Clarity: LinkedIn connect with your Alma Mater part 1

Connecting with professionals and academic mentors is a key part of networking, LinkedIn is a great tool for this if you are comfortable with having a LinkedIn account. The LinkedIn account does expose you to everyone your places of employment, academic status and those within your professional circle. If you are okay with that then one suggestion I have is to link up with Professors from your Alma mater, this way now only can you give the appearance of that student who excelled in their classes so much that their professors actually like them! Ha! But also, you can reach out to them for questions regarding your degree field, mentor ship, or even possibly letters of recommendation.

This is an example of one of the messages I sent to a Professor on LinkedIn was:
“Good afternoon Professor

I was wondering if I could ask you for some advice. After graduation as I work on my job search, are there any keywords or areas I should be applying my focus in regards to organizational development?
Have a good day”

It is very basic however by sending a short message I was able to reach out, connect, and add a Professor from my Alma mater to my connections for my LinkedIn account. I was actually successful 5 times with his approach and it adds some variety to my body of connections. This is very important to have a connection list from various bodies of affiliation especially to potential employers who will then see that you an outgoing professional not just at one job or school but multiple.

And potential employers do search the internet for your LinkedIn account so building up your connection list is key. Keeping thinking variety, variety, variety and having a Professor or two from your Alma mater only adds that necessary “sparkle” to your profile, where nothing else can.