Linking your student account to LinkedIn can be a great way to build your professional brand and network while still in school. LinkedIn provides students with access to millions of professionals, companies, jobs, and internships. Connecting your student profile to your LinkedIn account allows you to showcase your academics, extracurriculars, skills, and experiences to employers and expand your professional opportunities.
Why should I link my student account to LinkedIn?
Here are some of the key benefits of linking your student account to LinkedIn:
- Display your academic achievements, courses, projects, organizations, and more from your student profile on LinkedIn to showcase your knowledge and involvement.
- Find alumni at your university who are working in your desired industry or at companies you want to work for. Message alumni to connect and ask for career advice.
- Discover internship and job opportunities that are only available to students at your university by connecting with your university’s career center and fellow students.
- Attend virtual career fairs, company information sessions, and recruiting events through your school’s LinkedIn page.
- Join LinkedIn Groups related to your major, interests, or student organizations to engage in discussions and expand your network.
- Follow companies you’re interested in working for after graduation to stay up-to-date on their latest content and job postings.
Linking your accounts makes it simple to keep your LinkedIn profile up-to-date with your student activities and leverage your school’s network and resources. It’s a great way to get a head start on building your professional brand and career opportunities as a student.
How do I link my student account to my LinkedIn profile?
The process for linking your student account to LinkedIn depends on the specific platforms and tools your school uses. Here are some common ways student accounts can be connected:
Through your school’s career services platform
Many colleges and universities use career services platforms like Handshake, Symplicity, or Beployed that integrate with LinkedIn. On these sites, you can generate a LinkedIn URL connected to your student profile and import information directly to your LinkedIn account. Follow these typical steps:
- Log into your school’s career services platform.
- Go to your profile settings.
- Look for the LinkedIn integration option.
- Click to connect or export your profile to LinkedIn. This will create a unique LinkedIn URL.
- Go to the LinkedIn URL generated and confirm that you want to import the information to your LinkedIn account.
Through your school’s alumni tool
Some colleges have their own alumni platforms, such as AlumniFire or GradLeaders, that integrate with LinkedIn. You can connect during school or after graduation using:
- Create an account on your university’s alumni platform.
- Go to settings and find the option to link to LinkedIn.
- Enter your LinkedIn sign-in information to authorize connecting your accounts.
- Confirm that you want to share your academic and profile information from the alumni platform to LinkedIn.
By adding your university email address
LinkedIn automatically identifies university email addresses (e.g. @university.edu). To connect your student account:
- Go to your LinkedIn profile.
- Click on the “Education” section and add your university.
- Enter your university email address (instead of a personal email) when adding your school.
- Confirm the school on your profile.
- LinkedIn will recognize this as your student email and unlock student-only tools and profiles.
Once you’ve added your university email address, you’ll gain access to student-focused groups, events, job postings, and be able to follow your university’s LinkedIn page.
By contacting your university’s IT department
Some colleges can directly integrate their student directories and profiles with LinkedIn through single sign-on authentication. Reach out to your university’s IT or student services department to ask if they support LinkedIn integration. If so, they can provide instructions on how to link the accounts through your school login credentials.
Best practices for your LinkedIn profile
Once your student account is connected, make sure your LinkedIn presence is professional. Here are some tips:
- Customize your LinkedIn URL using your name to make it easy to share.
- Craft a detailed headline showcasing your major, graduation year, and aspirations.
- Write a compelling summary highlighting your academics, goals, and what makes you unique.
- Upload a professional-looking photo in business attire or at a school event.
- Personalize your background photo with a relevant image, quotes, or visualization.
- Add in-depth details to your education section about your degree, courses, activities, honors, etc.
- Include key class projects that demonstrate hard and soft skills.
- Join groups related to your university, industry, or interests to expand your network.
- Follow companies that align with your career goals and interests.
- Engage regularly by sharing articles, commenting, and liking posts.
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile and connecting with your school’s network during your student years can help propel your future career opportunities. Make the most of your integration by regularly engaging with your network, sharing content, and seeking out jobs and internships.
Table of common issues when linking accounts
| Issue | Solution |
|---|---|
| Can’t find connection option | Contact your school’s IT or career services department to ask about integration. |
| Integration not working | Make sure you are using your official school email address and password. Double check that your accounts use matching names and emails. |
| Connection request stuck pending | Log out and back into both your school platform and LinkedIn account to retrigger the integration. |
| Not importing correct information | Manually update any outdated or missing academics, experiences, and activities on your school platform profile first before reconnecting. |
| Graduated but can’t connect alumni tool | Contact your school to switch your email and access to the alumni version or reconnect through your alumni email. |
Conclusion
Making the most of LinkedIn’s opportunities for students by connecting your account provides a professional platform to continue leveraging your school network and showcase your skills after graduation. Follow best practices for your profile and engagement to build relationships, discover opportunities, and establish your personal brand on LinkedIn while still in college to set yourself up for future career success.
