UGM organized a training session titled “LinkedIn Training: Unlocking & Power Up Your Professional Profile.” This session aimed to enhance personal branding in the digital world and was open to all UGM students.
The training was conducted online on three separate occasions: Jul. 13, Jul. 19, and Aug. 16, 2024. Participants included students from undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels.
Bondan Wijanarko, Coordinator of Cross-Disciplinary Learning at the Directorate of Education and Teaching, stated that UGM continuously encourages students to be tech-savvy.
In the 4.0 era, students are required to understand and be proficient in information technology across all fields.
“Moreover, with the increasingly competitive business and industrial world, students must have a strong value proposition and professionalism,” he said.
One of the topics emphasized by UGM was LinkedIn. For UGM, this topic can support students’ value proposition and professional development.
Irvandias Sanjaya, a career consultant for alumni at the UGM Faculty of Psychology and certified coach practitioner, opened the training by asking if the UGM academic community members had already created a LinkedIn account.
This is followed by a second question: What about LinkedIn? And a third question: How confident are you, as students, with your LinkedIn profiles?
Responses began to emerge.
Out of 201 training participants in the second session, 76 had LinkedIn accounts. Irvandias Sanjaya smiled and expressed gratitude.
For those already familiar with LinkedIn, he said, it is indeed seen as a necessary platform to support a value proposition and professionalism. It is often used as a primary reference for job and career searches.
“We cannot deny that we live in a digital era, where social media will become an integral part of every aspect of life,” Sanjaya said on Friday, Jul. 19, 2024.
Sanjaya illustrated that in the past, parents sought jobs through website information or job fairs. Now, job vacancy information can be obtained through social media.
“Social media can be a platform to showcase who we are and our experiences,” he explained.
This is why, he said, caution is necessary when posting on social media.
According to Sanjaya, LinkedIn is believed to be a vital platform for job searching and achieving career goals. Many people use LinkedIn to build their professional track record.
“This can be a bridge to getting job offers,” he said.
He agreed with Jill Rowley, GTM Advisor from Guild Education Social Selling Evangelist, who said that LinkedIn represents a digital reputation, meaning an individual’s reputation will be reflected in their profile.
“LinkedIn can be considered a new way or a new world for personal branding, even gaining financial benefits in the future,” Sanjaya explained.
Sanjaya highlighted three important points about why using LinkedIn is essential, based on a survey from 10 companies.
HR departments from 9 companies search for employees through LinkedIn to thoroughly check candidates’ backgrounds during selection. He also mentioned that 25 million job seekers monitor LinkedIn weekly for job vacancies.
Additionally, 87 percent of recruitment processes use LinkedIn for candidate screening, especially for those under the age of forty-five.
Therefore, Sanjaya stated that LinkedIn is considered the best investment with the lowest cost as a platform for personal branding. He shared his experience creating LinkedIn for the first time.
“At that time, I created LinkedIn in the UGM library using free internet, and six years later, many people recognized my professional capacity through LinkedIn, which sparked numerous offers that yielded multiple returns,” he revealed.
Despite the training being held online, participant enthusiasm was high. Interaction between the speaker and participants was intense, and discussions flowed with various questions from the participants.
Syafira Syahda Nirmala, a participant from the Electronics and Instrumentation program in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, had just completed her thesis defense and was preparing for her graduation. She said that the “Digital Personal Branding Through LinkedIn” training was very beneficial for her as she prepared to search for job vacancies.
Author: B. Diah Listianingsih
Editor: Agung Nugroho
Post-editor: Lintang