In this week’s episode, I’m delighted to welcome back to the podcast Dr. Anna Stumpf. Anna is passionate about helping young people succeed and today she shares all of the reasons that LinkedIn is a valuable tool for teenagers and young adults. You might be thinking that without a lot of work experience or not being very far in their career, LinkedIn is a waste of time for young people. This episode will prove you wrong. Anna talks all about why teens and young adults need to get started on LinkedIn earlier and why it’s different from all the other social media that they have been using. We talk about the summary section and how it provides a really great opportunity to paint a picture of who we really are. Anna also stresses the importance of following people versus connecting with people on LinkedIn. Anna refers to LinkedIn as Google for professionals because of the robust search tool, and she shares her expert tips for using it when searching for jobs, people, companies, and groups. This episode is packed full of useful advice and clear, actionable steps for anyone looking to create or update their LinkedIn profile.
About Dr. Anna Stumpf
Anna was a guest on the High School Hamster Wheel podcast back in episode 14, and she provided excellent advice and insights to teens and young adults about developing their personal brand. If you haven’t listened to that episode, I highly recommend going back and listening to that one as well.
Dr. Anna Stumpf is a self-described “edutainer” and has come to be known as the Golden Ticket Prof. After ten years in management with Wal-Mart, she earned a master of arts in teaching then spent over eight years in the high school classrooms. She earned her MBA and then went on to teach undergraduate and graduate business courses for eight years. After earning a doctorate in marketing, she now coordinates an online graduate degree program in information and communication sciences for Ball State University.
Episode Highlights
- Encouraging teens to be productive while on break
- Every student should use their “Golden Ticket”
- LinkedIn is a valuable research tool for students
- Parents can help their teens get started on LinkedIn
- When creating a LinkedIn profile, begin with the end in mind
- Don’t get hung up on the headline and summary
- Teens can follow people and share their content
- It’s not about collecting connections on LinkedIn
- When inviting someone to connect on LinkedIn, be sure to include a note
- A special offer for teens and young adults
- The LinkedIn search feature is like professional Google