Advanced LinkedIn Tips For MBA Students

*While I'm writing this from the perspective of an MBA student, all these LinkedIn tips work for any sort of student.

You've mastered the basics of LinkedIn. Your profile is filled out. You've stopped connecting with strangers. You always send a personalized message when you connect. What's next? Below are my advanced tips for students who want LinkedIn to be a competitive advantage for them in finding a job and managing their career.

1. Embed work that you've done. It's your reputation, not your resume. Show everyone what you can do. If you have any examples of your work that you're proud of, put them under the job where you created it. LinkedIn lets you embed videos, Slideshare and links to webpages.

2. Create profiles in other languages you speak. I wrote another post about why you should do this. You can read it here. It's easy to create a profile in another language in LinkedIn.

3. Optimize your profile for the right keywords. Make sure the key words you want to be found for are in your profile. LinkedIn works a lot like a search engine. If the words or job titles you want to be found for are not in your profile, you'll be hard to find.

4. Join groups strategically and participate. Join groups that are the watering holes of the people you want to be associated with. Jump in on the conversations that are interesting. Groups are a great way to show expertise and build new relationships.

5. Automate some of your sharing. I've found that it is a lot easier to share content on LinkedIn if you use a tool like Buffer. Consistent sharing of relevant content about your industry will keep you top of mind in your network. Buffer queues up articles so they are shared in the future. For example, you can have a post go out every Monday at 3:00 pm. If you find 7 articles you'd like to share one morning, you can have them easily scheduled to go out over the next 7 days. The advanced scheduling helps you be consistent and saves you the hassle of trying to find a new article to share everyday. Check out this article from Buffer on how it works.

6. Sign up for advanced contacts functionality. Go to contacts.linkedin.com, hit the "get started" button. As you go through the sign up process, don't forget to sync LinkedIn with your email and calendar. For more details on what these features can do, check out this article from Hubspot on how to use LinkedIn contacts. As an MBA student, these features will save you countless hours as you use LinkedIn to build your network and find a job or internship.

7. Get recommendations- I recommend getting one or two for each major role. While it's tempting to get them from a fellow MBA student, try to get recommendations from professionals you worked with in your jobs.

8. Manage your endorsements- If you are getting endorsed for something you don't want to be endorsed for, take it down. Check out this article to learn how to do it. If there is something you'd like to be endorsed for, send an email to a bunch of fellow MBA students or a small trusted group of friends/colleagues asking them to endorse you. Definitely do not SPAM everyone you know asking for an endorsement. Also, only ask to be endorsed for skills that you legitimately feel you have some expertise in.

I hope you've enjoyed these advanced LinkedIn tips for MBA students. If you have done all these things, you are well on your way to becoming an LinkedIn expert. If you missed my first post on this topic LinkedIn Basics For MBA Students, click the link to get the basics down before you try all the steps I've outlined above. If you're looking for more tips on how to write your LinkedIn summary check out LinkedIn Summary Examples for MBA Students. If you have any other questions, please comment below. Also, if you have some advanced LinkedIn tips I'm missing, I'd love to hear about them.