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10 Stunningly Good Graduate Student LinkedIn Summary Examples

How much thought did you put in while crafting your LinkedIn profile, more importantly, your LinkedIn student summary? You probably did a good job, but are you interested in seeing 10 stunningly good summary graduate Student LinkedIn Summary Examples? If so, read on!

Much like Facebook and Instagram serve as our social identities, LinkedIn cultivates our professional identity and serves as a professional database for our digital footprint.

We all have digital footprints, whether we create them intentionally or unintentionally. Businesses, entrepreneurs, HR recruiters, and industry leaders have increasingly started recruiting professionals and freelancers from LinkedIn.

Setting a good first impression is of the utmost importance, and a LinkedIn profile that you created hastily will cast a negative light on your professional identity. So, if you’re looking for lucrative opportunities to market your skills and explore career advancement opportunities, your LinkedIn student summary is a crucial element that needs to be perfected. 

Why is a LinkedIn student summary so important? 

Your LinkedIn student summary is the most significant element of your entire LinkedIn profile. It should be engaging, impressively written, well-structured, and, most importantly, it should be grounded in reality.

HR recruiters, mentors, and executives have a keen eye for professional aesthetics and content regarding  LinkedIn  profiles. 

Recent graduates and students seek to build up their resume, refine their digital footprint, and engagingly present their professional LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn graduation posts have become increasingly popular across student LinkedIn accounts, and they serve a significant purpose. 

Recent graduates enter the industry with an innovative and upgraded skillset, enhancing their  marketability  for talent Scouters and firms that recruit fresh talent. Many students create LinkedIn profiles to keep up with the trend, and their LinkedIn student summary sections are either blank or consist of one-liners and odd phrases. 

Students who are just about to embark on their professional journeys need to focus on cultivating their digital profile and marketing their skillsets as early as possible. The global job market has become increasingly competitive, with freelancers and remote professionals claiming immense prominence-because of their ability to market their services and skills effectively. 

It’s crucial to set aside all distractions and focus on crafting a LinkedIn graduation post. Your post should be inspiring, detailing your experience and skills, and reflecting your ambitions and life goals. 

This article will walk you through ten impressive LinkedIn summary examples for graduates, alongside some pro tips to craft an engaging LinkedIn student summary for your profile. Take a look:

Compelling LinkedIn Student Summary Examples 

• Mikaila V. Smith 

In a highly impressive profile, Mikaila has detailed her academic and professional achievements in a truly engaging manner. This is one of the best LinkedIn summary examples for students who wish to attract professional opportunities and market their skillset strategically. 

• Samantha Manguiat

This is a cleverly crafted LinkedIn student summary. It allows Samantha to outline her academic experience, professional capabilities, and passions with a well-written introduction. It’s a great example to follow if you’re finding it difficult to craft your LinkedIn summary. 

• Maks Fraszka

Here’s an excellent example of taking inspiration from infusing your LinkedIn student summary with creativity. Maks Fraszka tells his life story in a brief yet engaging student summary. He details his academic and professional pursuits with a lighthearted banter that reveals his personality and interests. 

• Tiffini Simmons

This is another impressively detailed profile and a highly presentable LinkedIn summary for students to learn how to market their skills effectively. Tiffini outlines her academic exposure, skills, and work experience by just getting to the point. 

• Megan McDonnell 

Here’s an example that reveals that an impressive LinkedIn student summary doesn’t necessarily have to be lengthy to make an impact. You can impact engagement by focusing on engagement and highlighting the strengths that will make you an excellent asset for any firm and industry. 

• Anthony Fioretto

Anthony Fioretto has used his LinkedIn student summary to discuss his academic pursuits, professional experiences, and interests. He has used this crucial LinkedIn space to reflect his personality, share his passions, and underscore the factors that motivate his ambitions. This LinkedIn student summary example can help you craft a brief yet impactful summary to make your Student LinkedIn account appear highly promising!

If you still have a few years of academic learning left and want to build up your resume with prestigious internships and volunteer opportunities, here’s a compelling LinkedIn student summary to check out. Matt Pell has outlined his academic and professional experiences and his future goals, with a well-written summary that reflects his ability to market his skillset effectively. 

• Noah Delumpa

One of the most inspiring LinkedIn student summary examples shared in this article, Noah Delumpa’s summary, is highly engaging and moving. With great craft, Noah has outlined his academic and professional pursuits. Instead of boring the reader with heavy jargon and big brand names, he talks about his professional values, ethics, and drives.

• Kaitlyn O’Connor

Another excellent example for students who are still navigating through their academic journey. Kaitlyn’s LinkedIn student summary does not include any prestigious internships, but it is just as impressive because she candidly shares her motivations behind her academic pursuits. 

• Will Hubber

Are you looking for good internships while completing your academic journey? Will Hubber’s LinkedIn student summary offers a lighthearted introduction to his academic pursuits and professional values and strengths. An excellent strategy to get noticed and make a lasting impression without using too many words! 

Tips to Write an Impressive LinkedIn Student Summary 

We’ve explored some examples to walk you through the contents of an impressive Linkedin summary for students. Now, let’s turn our attention towards some tips that can help you craft one for yourself. 

• Define your academic journey

Your LinkedIn student summary must reveal your academic pursuits and the motivations that inspired you to embark on your chosen degree. Recruiters, mentors, and observers are not just interested in the institutions you are affiliated with or the degrees you have completed. 

They want to know more about why you choose a particular major and how you plan to use it. Luckily, your LinkedIn graduation post is the right space to explain why your chosen academic path inspires you. Modern-day employers seek fresh graduates who are inspired and motivated, and you can cast a powerful impression by presenting your drives and academic interests in detail. 

• Professional experience and pursuits 

Since LinkedIn is a professional database, your LinkedIn summary must outline your experiences, internships, and other accolades on your resume. Only listing down your experiences won’t make a desirable impact. You have to use each experience to outline what you’ve learned, and how that particular opportunity helped you grow professionally. 

Writing about professional experiences allows you to present your strength and even discuss crucial projects you’ve worked on. It is an opportunity to show your skills in a highly engaging manner and discuss your strengths by revealing how you have cultivated them. 

• Your values and ethics 

Do you consider yourself to be a natural-born leader? Or perhaps, you firmly believe in your abilities to cool off tensions and arbitrate disputes? Do you believe in teamwork and thrive in nurturing environments, or do you prefer to work alone? 

All of the LinkedIn summary examples for graduates introduced above discuss professionals’ values and ethics because employers are keen to extract knowledge that reflects your values. Instead of allowing them to make their own assumptions, you can directly demonstrate who you are. 

Use your student LinkedIn bio to present the qualities and values that make you an excellent fit for any organization. What do you have to offer as an employee, a colleague, a subordinate, and a community member? Your summary must touch upon your values and ethics, however briefly or expressively you prefer. 

• Humanize your profile 

Employers and recruiters are not looking for bots that can be programmed to perform specific tasks. They are looking for bright and talented graduates with vibrant personalities and the potential to make meaningful contributions to their organizations. It is instrumental in humanizing your account with a creative flair and a narrative grounded in your real experiences. 

Instead of mimicking the student LinkedIn summaries, you’ve seen in our list or elsewhere, concentrate on presenting your own experiences and struggles. What are the elements, passions, and values that define you as a person? What were the defining moments of your academic journey or professional experiences that clarified your professional goals? 

Where did you travel to study or work, and what are your interests other than exploring lucrative professional opportunities? It is crucial to present a human side to your professional profile to balance the narrative and cast a good impression. 

• Maintain clarity 

It is crucial to define the goals of your LinkedIn graduation post or student summary throughout the narrative. What are your professional goals? What is the nature of your skillset and talents? What kind of work environment are you looking for? Are you currently pursuing your education or looking to get hired by a reputable firm? 

Maintaining clarity is of the utmost importance, so avoid dragging out ideas too much. The best LinkedIn student summaries strike a balance between too short and too long and present just enough information to hook the reader without causing them to work too hard. 

• Focus on keywords 

Keywords are the most significant element to be mindful of as they will make your LinkedIn student summary optimized for search results. LinkedIn has a considerably higher ranking in Google’s search results, and focus keywords will help you enhance your digital footprint and, consequently, your marketability. 

Be sure to incorporate the most relevant keywords to your professional skills, industry, institution, and interests. It is ideal to do your research on your keywords before you start writing the draft. There’s a dashboard located right below the summary, where you can find “search appearances” to identify the keywords used by your searchers. 

Scoop up all the keywords relevant to your professional goals and career pursuits, but be sure to avoid jamming them into the summary tactlessly. 

• Originality and uniqueness

It may seem overwhelming, but once you start writing, it will get more comfortable and you can work on refining your draft. It is crucial to go through all the LinkedIn summary examples for students given above and take notes of the keywords, narration, and themes. 

This will help you create a mental structure of the summary you want to introduce your academic and professional pursuits and offer an impactful glimpse into your personality. There’s no point in imitating these LinkedIn summary examples since uniqueness and originality are of the utmost significance to make you stand out. 

Cultivate your own unique blend of creativity and focus more on humanizing your experiences. Often, when we admire the experiences and portfolios of others, we unconsciously end up judging ourselves against them, which can be quite destructive if practiced routinely. It is crucial to take pride in everything you have accomplished so far and present it with confidence. 

Be sure to outline your personal goals, professional values, and use this summary to display your unique blend of intellect, wisdom, and creativity. Be sure to add an action point at the end of your LinkedIn summary, encouraging people to contact you for a collaborative and rewarding professional relationship. 

Focus on creating a narrative that reflects your personality and outlines your academic and professional goals, not like a resume. Still, like a fun introduction, one would give at an orientation meeting. 

We hope that this guide was helpful and inspiring in crafting a creative and impactful LinkedIn student summary. If you need further guidance about perfecting your LinkedIn profile as a recent graduate or student, please check our online training section and profile optimization service. We’re always happy to help young adults at the cusp of professional greatness! 

Main Photo by inlytics | LinkedIn Analytics Tool on Unsplash

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The Academic Designer

Communications for Professors and Scientists

7 LinkedIn Profile Tips for Graduate Students

Why linkedin is important for graduate students like you.

LinkedIn is the best social media platform for graduate students. This guide tells you why.

I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to The Social Academic blog, where I share how to manage your online presence. I write about websites and social media for academics.

In this article, learn 7 ways to improve your LinkedIn profile for graduate students

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The form above subscribes you to new posts published on The Social Academic blog. Want emails from Jennifer about building your online presence? Subscribe to her email list. Looking for the podcast? Subscribe on Spotify. Prefer to watch videos? Subscribe on YouTube.

7 ways to improve your LinkedIn profile while in grad school

Your headline should be descriptive

How do you write a LinkedIn headline as a student? Most grad students I see on LinkedIn have a Headline like “Graduate Teaching Assistant at University of Iowa” or “PhD Student at Temple University.” The information I see most is Job Title + Affiliation, but it’s not enough.

You need more information in your Headline to invite people to explore your profile. Communicating who we are in just 120 characters is hard.

In my article on LinkedIn for Professors and Researchers, I talk about how your Headline is the one piece of information about you people are guaranteed to read if you

• write them a message
• appear in their search results
• send a connection request

Be specific when writing your LinkedIn Headline. Include as much detail as you can in 120 characters. A good formula to follow is “Keyword + Job Title or Student + affiliation | Area of specialization.”

A headline like, “Political Science PhD Candidate | Graduate Research Assistant at Duke University | Security, Peace, and Conflict” is descriptive. It uses keywords people may search on LinkedIn when looking for connections (i.e. political science, Duke University, security, peace, conflict).

When your friend asks what to put in their LinkedIn headline as a student, send them this post.

Join my LinkedIn profile course for academics.

Profile photos that focus on your face are easier to recognize

When you choose a profile photo for LinkedIn, choose one that focuses on your face.

Some people prefer an upper body headshot that includes your chest and face. On mobile screens it’s much harder to recognize upper body headshots than face headshots.

Choose a profile photo of your face. And don’t forget to smile!

Here’s how to take a professional headshot for free on your phone.

Write an About section with a friendly bio

Write a short bio for your LinkedIn profile that introduces you to profile visitors. I start mine with “Hi, I’m Jennifer…” because real people visit my profile and I want to be friendly.

Include in your bio the information you most want people to know.

This is not a traditional academic bio. You can talk about your

• work experience
• educational background
• volunteer/service experience
• hobbies and interests

Add the bio to your LinkedIn Experience section.

Let people know how to contact you

People may want to get in touch with you beyond sending a connection request on LinkedIn. In your About section, after your bio, include contact information.

How do you most want to be contacted? Some grad students like to use their institutional email address. Any email address is fine, as long as it’s one you check.

Maybe you spend more time on Twitter than checking your email. Including social media handles where you can be contacted is another great option for graduate students.

Share links in your Experience and Education sections

Your Experience and Education sections on LinkedIn can be dynamic! You can include links and other media to entries in these sections.

For example, in your Education section you could include a link (URL) to your

• School or department website
• Research lab
• Publication
• Blog post or interview
• News or media mention

You can also include other types of media like images and PDFs.

Choose 50 skills that make sense for you now

You can add up to 50 skills on your LinkedIn profile. Many of you may be headed on the non-academic job market.

Skills on LinkedIn are an important part of applying to jobs through LinkedIn. Basically, the LinkedIn algorithm matches your profile (including your Skills) to the requirements jobs you apply to through LinkedIn. Hiring managers get a score that says how closely your profile matches the job. So if you don’t include skills on your profile, your application may not even be viewed.

Check out my tips for social media and the job market.

Add 50 skills to your LinkedIn profile. The Skills section is a good one to update each year.

Your LinkedIn profile will change over time

As you grow and change, so will your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is the best alternative to a website because it

• Shows up high in Google search results and other search engines
• Can be updated and edited whenever you need
• Can include links and media making it more dynamic
• Can be extensive without being overwhelming
• Has advanced search capabilities making it easy to find the right connections
• Is helpful if you’re an academic for networking with your scholarly community
• Is highly recommended when applying for jobs (non-academic)
• Is becoming more social (more conversations are happening on LinkedIn)

But your LinkedIn profile won’t change if you don’t update it. Review each section of your profile at least once a year. Add an update to your calendar now. The best place to start your is by updating your student LinkedIn headline.

Your online presence helps your real life

Grad students, I have faith that you can do this. You can make a great LinkedIn profile that helps people understand who you are and what you care about. People that want to help you.

Want step-by-step training to update your LinkedIn profile? Here’s my online course to help you do-it-yourself.

If you want more help with LinkedIn, don’t hesitate to reach out! I’d love to work with you. Graduate students have used university funds (professional development funds, academic department, and graduate school) to pay for support when they work with me on 1:1 online presence services.

Ask your university to bring me in as a speaker. My workshops are fun and interactive. And you’ll build confidence when showing up online. I’m here to help you. Learn more about my workshops.

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Jennifer van Alstyne View All →

Jennifer van Alstyne is a Peruvian-American poet and communications consultant. She founded The Academic Designer LLC to help professors build a strong online presence for their research, teaching, and leadership. Jennifer’s goal is to help people feel confident sharing their work with the world.

Jennifer’s personal website https://jennifervanalstyne

The Academic Designer LLC https://theacademicdesigner.com

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• Pingback: Graduate Students: Tips to Improve Your LinkedIn – Custom Career Content | UM Alumni | University of Miami

7 Tips to write a Perfect Graduate Student LinkedIn Summary (With examples)

• November 20, 2020
• CAREER SKILLS

LinkedIn is one of the best and commonly known online, professional networking services. Many graduate students can take advantage of this platform to grow professionally, especially since LinkedIn is one of the places where different companies find their employees through recommendations .

However, since every student has a profile on LinkedIn, you should strive to make yours stand out in ways that will capture the attention of the reader. Since everyone is focused on their LinkedIn profiles, the LinkedIn summary is often overlooked. As a graduate student, you can focus on your LinkedIn summary to stand out from the rest of the students from all areas of study.

Another important reason why you should consider writing a good graduate student LinkedIn summary or the “about” section is because this is the third part that your readers will see after seeing your profile picture and name. The profile picture and the name may be appealing, but if the summary is not well written, the reader will lose interest even before reading the summary further.

Unlike other platforms which may limit you to the number of words that you need to use in your summary, LinkedIn allows you to write a summary about yourself in about 2000 words. Some of the best tips for writing the best graduate student LinkedIn summary include the following.

1.Start your first sentence with a hook

The first sentence of your graduate student LinkedIn summary should capture the attention of the reader and make him or her want to read more. Managers have so many things to do, and if they are looking for the best graduate student LinkedIn summary, yours should stand out in unique ways. To make your LinkedIn summary stand out, you need to make the reader want to know more about you and to effectively do this, use a hook in the first sentence of your LinkedIn summary.

2.Use specific- keywords

Using keywords help in putting you closer to the top. This is because most employers use keywords when looking for the best candidates for a specific position. This is why a graduate student LinkedIn summary should incorporate keywords, to help find a student fit for a specific position easily.

For instance, you can write that “I am currently in my last year as a Law Student at Harvard University” . When an employer is looking for law students, you are most likely to appear at the top because you have used the keyword “law student”. In addition to that, all the other students with the same keyword will also appear at the top of the search.

3.Always write from a first-person perspective

Most of the professional biographies usually take the third-person narrative. However, when writing a graduate student LinkedIn summary, you should always use the first-person narrative. This makes the reader know more about you at a personal level  from just reading your voice.

The tone that you use in your LinkedIn summary will also tell the reader more about yourself, and if you are very passionate about your professional achievements. Confidence is one of the key things that most employers look for in their candidates, making it very important to portray a high level of confidence in your graduate student LinkedIn summary.

For instance, you can say that “I know how much teamwork can cause a positive change in the company and for individuals. I believe that teamwork makes dream work, and I consider myself a good team layer.” The fact that you have written the summary from a first-person perspective shows the reader that you are talking about “you”, and that you have recognized some of your best qualities that you think are important when put to use.

4.Use short to medium-length paragraphs

A well-written paragraph should have at most seven to eight lines. This makes it easier for the reader to get the point of the whole graduate student LinkedIn summary. Consequently, writing long paragraphs will only make your work look boring and unpleasing to the reader. However, if the paragraphs are short or medium length, the reader will be interested in going on reading your LinkedIn summary.

In addition to that, also ensure that your paragraphs do not have long sentences. Have short sentences that are punctuated correctly, and can give the reader time to relax and get the whole point behind the graduate student LinkedIn summary.

5.Include information about your personal life

Remember that the reader also wants to know more about your personal life, and the things that you find interest in. since LinkedIn is an online platform that is used mainly for professional purposes, it is better to show the reader that you are a human being, and that you also have a life outside work.

Some students think that listing only their professional life will get managers attracted to their profiles. However, when you cannot find something fun to do after work, getting productive at work will be difficult because you will be burnt out and exhausted from working all the time.

The reader also wants to see the personal side of your life too. In your graduate student LinkedIn summary, you can include a few of your hobbies, the things you find interesting, and even your pets. Listing this on the summary is important especially since the rest of the LinkedIn profile says everything there is about your professional life.

For instance, you can say that “I am a football fan, and I spend most of my free time watching my favorite teams. If I am not glued to the screen watching a football match, you will find me walking my dog, mostly in the evenings.” You want to portray that you are human and you also have a life outside of work.

6.Avoid saying you are Unemployed

Telling the reader that you are unemployed only shows that you are not optimistic and that you are not ready for whatever may happen in the future. For instance, if you are a graduate teacher, engineering student, or law student, then you should focus on what the future holds for you. You are not unemployed, rather you are the future professor, engineer, and lawyer that the country needs. Therefore, whenever you are writing your graduate student LinkedIn summary, avoid using the term “unemployed” to refer to your current situation. It would be better to show some level of optimism.

7.Explain what you are doing currently

The experiences that you have gained so far need to be recognized in the graduate student LinkedIn summary. The employers need to know why you are doing what you are currently doing. Writing about your current experiences also shows the reader whether you are fit for the task at hand in a given company. However, when explaining what you are currently doing, focus on making it as simple as possible, so that it is easy for the reader to understand.

Writing a clear, straightforward, and concise summary is very important as compared to writing long LinkedIn summaries. A LinkedIn summary does not need a conclusion because the summary itself gives the information that the reader wants to know. Concluding a summary only makes you repeat everything you have said.

8.Common graduate student LinkedIn summary mistakes

The above tips help students write the perfect graduate student LinkedIn summary. However, there are some common mistakes that students tend to make in their LinkedIn summary. Some commonly made mistakes include the following.

Not having a profile picture

A profile picture helps the reader to know who he or she is dealing with. Failing to have a LinkedIn profile picture looks unprofessional and possibly could give a negative expression to a person who is interested in your graduate student LinkedIn summary. Not having a picture can deliver the wrong message that you may be a fraud.

Unprofessional profile picture

LinkedIn is an online professional platform where most people can be recommended for work. This means that most of the information you have on your profile should be professional, including your profile picture  . Having an unprofessional profile picture will not get you any readers.

Spelling, grammar & punctuation mistakes

Human beings are prone to make mistakes. However, since you want to appear professional, you should go through your graduate student LinkedIn summary to ensure that there are no typing errors in your summary.

Not mentioning your core strengths

You have to mention the things that you are good at, both personal and professional in your LinkedIn summary. However, some students fail to include their skills in their summaries, and this makes their whole summary irrelevant. Readers go through LinkedIn summaries to get the best candidate, with the desired skills to hire.

9.Examples of Graduate Student LinkedIn Summaries

How a student writes a LinkedIn summary depends on his or her major. This is what will help you sell yourself and will make you appear at the top of the search list. In this case, we are going to focus on two examples of graduate student LinkedIn summary, which will be mainly focused on a Finance student and an Education student.

Finance graduate student LinkedIn summary

This market requires you to sell yourself through marketing your main background skills on LinkedIn. An example of the LinkedIn summary is as follows.

“I am a 2016 Finance graduate student from Cambridge University. I have a passion for Entrepreneurial Finance and have used my communication skills for the best interest of both my team members and the company as a whole. I have worked in the real world, with real challenges, and getting solutions to these challenges is always very satisfying. Over the past year and a half, I am honored to say that my company has made me grow in ways I thought impossible. I consider myself aggressive, passionate, and a problem-solver. I love getting things done and I take pride in seeing everyone happy with my work. I am also a pet lover, who loves taking long walks with my dog when not on work duty,”

Education graduate student LinkedIn summary

Education is a major that is taken by various students. It is therefore advisable that anyone who wishes to pursue a career in education, to focus on any experience they may be having in the classroom. If you are passionate about teaching, then that is an added advantage. An example of a eduacation graduate student LinkedIn summary is as follows.

“I knew I wanted to be a teacher from the moment I kept tutoring my nieces. I realized that my passion for teaching grew immensely and I made sure that it did not stop at tutoring my relatives. I pursued a career in Education and graduated in 2017 from the University of Massachusetts. Teaching has been my long-term passion, and I am confident to say that I love teaching Literature at Yale University. I find teaching refreshing and my communication skills have positively impacted the lives of my students. Problem-solving has been made much easier through communication and understanding.”

Engineering graduate student LinkedIn summary

A well-written description will immensely help students in engineering and other technical programs—the engineering sector values participants who can communicate effectively and market themselves well. Using bullet points would be efficient to describe yourself to people. An example of an engineering graduate student LinkedIn summary is as follows.

I thrive on building connections between materials science and computational engineering and have spent several years in the domains of surface engineering and nanotechnology. I’m a graduate of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Freelance Academic Writer and Tech Blogger: Helping scholars and young professionals to advance in their carriers. Data Analyst : Modelling / Visualization / Data management /Mining / Wrangling. Proficient in : MATLAB / COMSOL Multiphysics / Solidworks / Creo Parametric / R Studio. Learning never stops.

10.Conclusions

All the above graduate school summaries have one thing in common: they were all written from the first-person perspective. This shows the reader that you are talking about yourself and your experiences and depicts a level of confidence that may just help you secure a chance in a given company. The paragraphs are short, with precise and clear sentences that are easy to read and understand, making work easier for the reader. Therefore, a graduate student LinkedIn summary should be straight to the point and should show some skills that you possess and think that will help you secure a chance in another institution.

Images Courtesy : Photo by inlytics | LinkedIn Analytics Tool & Photo on Unsplash , Vector icon from freepik , Background photo created by rawpixel.com – www.freepik.com

Aruna Kumarasiri

Founder at Proactive Grad, Materials Engineer, Researcher, and turned author. In 2019, he started his professional carrier as a materials engineer with the continuation of his research studies. His exposure to both academic and industrial worlds has provided many opportunities for him to give back to young professionals.

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This is really worthy article. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with everyone.

Thanks, Supun! That’s great to hear.🙂

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How to optimise your LinkedIn profile as an academic

Research Retold

Many of our research clients use LinkedIn and have expressed interest in improving their profiles. So we decided to gather some tips and insights from our team and other academics who encountered the same challenge.

In this blog, we share concrete suggestions on how to optimise your LinkedIn profile as an academic to help you get the most out of this networking tool.

The list is not by any means exhaustive, but it provides an initial guide.

If you have more recommendations please share them in the comments!

Why use LinkedIn as an academic?

In contrast with other social media platforms, LinkedIn is focused on business and employment. As such, it has the potential to communicate your research to corporate audiences and bring a wider readership to your work (Morcom, 2020). 

As of February 2021, LinkedIn had over 675 million users according to the site. This can be very useful to create contacts, especially with companies and researchers you would like to collaborate with. 

LinkedIn is an excellent tool for looking at job opportunities, which usually arise through contacts rather than being advertised. Actually, one of our Research Retold team members first contacted us through this channel. This platform also enables you to share and highlight your research as well as to comment on other people’s work (van Alstyne, 2020).

Think of your LinkedIn profile as a dynamic CV in which you can showcase your skills, expertise and experience.

Since the platform is less personal than Facebook and more formal than Twitter (Morcom, 2020), the way you share information in your profile requires a different approach.

Here are some main recommendations when setting up your profile to optimise your LinkedIn profile as an academic in terms of the look and the content:

1) The look of your profile

• Use a professional picture . Have a solid colour background, good lighting and preferably a smile. This will make it easier for others to associate you with the information you share on your profile.
• Display your expertise at a glance . Use the banner to add more related images. For example, pictures of you doing your usual activities. These can be tutoring, giving lectures, doing lab work or on field trips. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.
• Write a headline that summarises what you do, or even what you want to do . This is the second most important part of your profile. It is the punchline that will make a recruiter or peers get interested. Be as brief and specific as you can. You can use keywords that make your profile easy to find. A recommended structure is:  name | keyword + job title + affiliation | field or specialisation. For example “John Kerry | Energy Systems Professor at the University of Sheffield”

2) The content in your profile

• Write a brief career story . When writing the ‘About’ section, avoid jargon and be relatable. Make it easier for others to understand your background and point of view. You can even share your core values (Barlow, 2020). 
• Share your experience in the designated section . An advantage of this platform is that it has space for you to give brief explanations of projects rather than just titles and bullet points. You can use 1 – 2 sentences. Keep all the details relevant to your skills and strengths. For example:

[box] Assistant Lecturer/Tutorial demonstrator

Part-time 2018 – 2020 2 yrs

• Lecturing, tutoring, invigilating and exam marking for COM1002 Foundations of Computer Science.
• The module covered: logic, set theory, Boolean algebra, linear algebra, proofs, probability theory.

Project Coordinator 

Part-time 2019 – 2020 1 yr

• Project coordinator of the collaboration between the University “X” and University “Y”.
• Funding from UKRI, grant xxxxx for studying the impacts of meditation in self-perception.[/box]
• Add volunteering activities . This will highlight your interests and allow others to see what you care about. You could share your experience as a tutor/mentor or your involvement in the activities of NGOs and university societies. If you are still a PhD student, these experiences can vouch for your teamwork and time management skills. Especially if you do not have working experience yet.
• Use the Featured section to showcase your work . In this section, you can share slides, papers, links or other kind of content. It is a great way to organise and expose your portfolio to others. For example, during conferences, you can show this section in case you want to share your previous work and you don’t have your computer with you.

Have a look at your profile. Does it display your values? Have you conveyed your purpose? Did these suggestions help you to optimise your LinkedIn profile as an academic?

Make the most of LinkedIn

Once you have created a nice and easy to navigate profile it is time to put it to good use.

You put a lot of hard work into it. Now it’s time to share it with the world, just as with any other research project findings.

Here are some actions you can take to reach out to others and make them notice you:

Build your network

Follow companies and people that interest you.

When looking for contacts, use keywords on your search. For example,  type “process engineering”, “physical therapy research” or “behaviour analysis”. This can help you find pages and companies related to your area of expertise. You can leave comments on their posts and share their publications. If you want to take it to the next level, why not send a personal message? Write about why you would like to collaborate with them and what you have to offer.

Post new content

Join professional groups, things to remember.

• Your LinkedIn profile is a living thing, and it needs to be kept up to date.
• Connect regularly to add new experiences or accomplishments. This will also help you track your career progress.
• Be your biggest supporter!

Barlow, Sonya. “ Succeed with LinkedIn ”. AllBright Academy: Supercharge your career. 2020. Accessed 09 February 2021. 

Frisch, Lucy. “ 5 Tips to use LinkedIn in promoting your research ” Springer Nature. August 2017. Accessed 09 February 2020. 

Morcom, Tom. “ How researchers use LinkedIn effectively ” Research to Action . 29 July 2020. Accessed 09 February 2021. 

van Alstyne, Jennifer. “ Is LinkedIn important for academics? ” The Academic Designer . 24 January 2020. Accessed on the 09 February 2021. 

Many thanks to our Research Communicator, Phebe Bonilla, for writing this blog post.

• 5 . 09 . 19
• Build Your Network , LinkedIn

LinkedIn for Phds: How to Use It to Build an Amazing Non-Academic Career

• Posted by: Chris

Updated Aug 03, 2023

Most people underestimate the power of LinkedIn for PhDs.

I was scrolling through my old LinkedIn messages today, and I came across the reach-out that got me my first non-academic job with my PhD.

This is what I wrote in the message:

Hi NAME. My name is Chris Cornthwaite. I’m just about to defend my PhD and new to Ottawa. I’m exploring where I want my career to go next. Although I’m a great researcher, I’m best with connecting to people. NAME recommended you to me, and I’m so glad he did. It seems that we have a similar skill set, and I would absolutely love to have a coffee with you to ask you some questions. Would you be interested in meeting, even for 20 minutes? I know this is a big ask, and I thank you for considering it either way. Sincerely, Chris

I don’t think its particularly good, and I wouldn’t write the same thing today. I’m not sure why I said the thing about “connecting to people.” It wasn’t perfect. But it didn’t have to be. The response came back anyway. She asked for a resume.

That’s it.

After a couple of interviews, I had my first job.

There’s no perfect science to it. I sent similar and better messages to other people and they were ignored.

LinkedIn has served me well, but since the launch of Roostervane I’ve been even more curious about how it helps PhDs get jobs. I’ve even created a group on LinkedIn for PhDs.

I’ve now spent time looking at dozens and even hundreds of PhD LinkedIn profiles.

And I’m convinced of one thing.

The power of LinkedIn for PhDs is not that there are jobs posted there, and it’s not that you can connect to people and build a network (both great things by the way).

The real power of LinkedIn is that you get to create yourself.

You get to take all the little parts of you that make up who you are: your talents, your skills , your history, and even your picture, and put forward the absolute best image of yourself to the world.

You get to create yourself.

That’s powerful.

That alone should be enough to get you going on LinkedIn.

Just think, in a world where you’re worried about being defined by your degree, your discipline, your supervisor, or your failure to get a tenure-track job (I get it, I didn’t get one either), LinkedIn gives you the endless possibility to invent yourself.

So lets go…

The real power of LinkedIn is that you get to create yourself. You get to take all the little parts of you that make up who you are: your talents, your skills, your history, and even your picture, and put forward the absolute best image of yourself to the world.

Step 1: Use a professional picture of you smiling

Step 2: pick a “headline” that says what you do or what you want to do, step 3: write an easy-to-read career story in the “about” section, step 4: fill in the “experience” section with your work history and great examples, step 5: add some projects and links, step 6: follow companies that interest you, step 7: post content, step 8: build your network.

This post may contain links to affiliate products, which–if you choose to purchase–pay us a commission at no extra cost to you. This helps to support our work. We only promote products we’ve used and love.

You can read my story about leaving academia in Doctoring: Building a Life With a PhD–Available on Amazon.

LinkedIn also has a course platform, LinkedIn Learning, which has a ton of good resources for building your career! Check it out here…

1. Use a real, professional-looking picture of you smiling

I used to hang out on academia.edu, and I realized there seems to be a certain genre of profile pics that academics (or maybe just humanities grads) like. It’s usually a picture of someone standing partially out of frame, looking off into the distance, and pretending to be way too busy meditating on discourse analysis to even be bothered to look at a camera.

Before you even think about uploading one of these pictures to LinkedIn, let me beg you… please use a good picture!

Professional head shots are great if you have them.

But it’s not required.

Dress nice. Look nice. Go stand outside in front of a solid-color wall with some decent light on you and either take a selfie or have a friend take a close-up of you smiling into a camera.

Sometimes people complain to me about this advice.

“I want to get the job based on what I can do, not what I look like.”

Okay… let’s think this through. I hope that if you went on a job interview you would take the time to dress in clean clothes, shower, etc. The same principle applies to your LinkedIn picture.

Put your best self forward.

Or look at it this way.

This is a picture of me…

This is also a picture of me…

Which one do you think portrays the image I want to project to employers?

Apart from my tie being crooked, the second might as well be a different person.

And that’s just it. Employers don’t know you. And honestly, they don’t care what you look like, and unless they’re total assholes they won’t care about the particulars of your identity.

But they do care that you present well. They care that you represent the company and that you’ll be professional to work with.

And a good photo tells them that (whether it’s true or not).

2. Pick a “Headline” that says either what you do or what you want to do

The “Headline” is the second most important part of your profile. It’s the second thing employers see, after your picture.

Usually a Headline lists a bit about who you are, job titles you hold, or skills you have. And you get to decide what these are.

So give yourself a great LinkedIn PhD title.

This is a bit unclear right now. I get it. You don’t really know what you want to do, so it’s hard to make up a career-encompassing title for yourself that the world will see.

For a while, mine was: Storyteller | Freelance Researcher & Writer | PhD Candidate. It’s not perfect, and it’s even a bit too generic. But it says something besides just “PhD Candidate,” which is good! Employers are not likely searching for “PhD Candidates” in their LinkedIn search bars, but they might look for the words “freelance,” “researcher,” or “writer.”

As of this writing, my current title is: Policy Consultant | Speaker | Advocate for Better HigherEd | Creator of Roostervane.com

Be as specific as you can in your LinkedIn PhD title. So you’re a PhD Candidate. That could be anything from a chemist or a medievalist. Try putting in some more specific modifiers about either skills you have or job titles you might want. Adding a bit of detail is a path to a great LinkedIn headline for graduate students.

This is a great place to put down a job title you hope to have one day–if you know it.

Don’t worry about the fact that you may not have any experience in a field you want to go into. Feel free to use words like Copywriter, Web Editor, UX Researcher, Data Mapper, or Social Media Marketer–assuming you have the chops to move into these fields, nobody’s going to fault you for it. (The exception is obviously if there’s a qualification you need for that field that you don’t have.)

Your headline can definitely reflect who you want to be and not just who you are right now.

Here’s some more fantastic reading on how to create a great headline with real-world examples.

3. Write an easy-to-read career story, limiting your research-talk to a few sentences in non-jargon.

The temptation that I see for academics is to try to prove to people how smart they are.

After all, that’s how academia works.

But in the real world, if you have or are about to have a PhD people are going to assume you’re smart. Their biggest fear will be that you’re not relatable.

Employers imagine that they’re hiring an egghead who will talk about esoteric things and work slow, will look like a creature of the night that just emerged from the stacks, and won’t be able to engage with people.

I’ve met very few PhDs like this, but it is the impression people have.

Forget about sounding smart.

Sound relatable.

Instead of saying “I study the reception of Aristotelian ethics into Islamic philosophy,” try saying: “I study what makes people tick, trying to figure out what a good life looks like.”

In their “About” sections, PhDs are often tempted to fill in all the details on their research as if they were applying for a life-changing grant. Don’t do this.

Don’t channel academic you.

Channel the trying-to-explain-what-I-do-to-my-relatives you.

Summarize your research in one easy to understand paragraph, and then write some other things about yourself and other roles you’ve held. Avoid academic language at all costs, and stay away from jargon unless you’re, say, a medical researcher who wants to keep doing medical research. Try your best to tell a bit of a story, and absolutely say where you want to go if you know!

If you want to see some great examples, check this out .

4. Fill in the “Experience” section with your work history and great examples

No matter what you’ve done, I think you need to put some things in the “Experience” section of your LinkedIn. Jobs you’ve done while studying (Research Assistant, Teaching Assistant), old jobs from before you started studying, get something in there. But if you have a couple of good experiences, resist the urge to cram it with every job you’ve ever had. You don’t need to include your life-guarding gig from high school.

You can have some fun with the experience section. I chose to write a brief little explanation of my projects and accomplishments in mine, rather than bullet points.

You have some freedom—but do fill it out.

9 Great Ways to Get Non-Academic Experience on Your Resume

New Grad? How to Get a Job With No Experience – 6 Tips (Video)

5. Add some projects and links

You can also include projects you’ve worked on. It’s a great way to boost your profile strength, especially if you don’t have a lot of practical experience.

You can create overviews of what the projects were and what they accomplished and link to the real thing if the project or a news story about it is online somewhere. It’s a great way to add some depth to your profile as a PhD. A link to an amazing project you did might be just the ticket!

For more on how to maximize the use of projects, click here.

6. Follow companies that interest you (and engage with them!)

LinkedIn is a social network for the workplace. Companies and business desperately want to be seen on there.

Your potential employers are starving for likes, clicks, and especially comments that show that people are engaging with what they’re doing. They’re desperate for people to notice them and to join the conversation they’re trying to start.

So be that person. Follow them. Share their material. Leave intelligent comments that show you’ve read their stuff and have ideas. I guarantee people will start to notice you. And bonus, companies often post jobs that they have available on LinkedIn, sometimes exclusively through sharing them in a feed. If you’re following you’ll have the leg up on these. They might even recognize your name when the application lands on their desk.

7. Post Content

One of the secrets of LinkedIn for PhDs, well for anyone really, is to post content. I’m pretty sure that 15 people read my last journal article, but I know that almost 2000 people read the last thing I posted on LinkedIn (it tells me 😊)—and it’s still climbing.

Can you imagine a better opportunity to share your ideas? For those of you who want to go into some form of communications, can you think of a better place to start? You’ve got a ready-made audience of people interested in the same things as you. Give them things to read!

Now—let’s get technical here. You have two main ways of creating content on LinkedIn.

• You can create articles and posts on LinkedIn itself.
• You can share things you’ve created that are hosted externally (articles on a website you own, Youtube videos, etc).

Both of these have pros and cons. The LinkedIn algorithm rewards people who create content on its site directly. ( Read more about the algorithm here if you’re interested. ) Also, it’s way easier to pop open the LinkedIn article tab and start writing something than it is to set up your own website or Youtube channel. But if you post your best stuff on LinkedIn you don’t control the platform where it lives, and it’s trickier to share across other platforms.

For that reason, I’ve chosen to host most of my ideas on an external website (which you’re reading right now) and just share to LinkedIn periodically. I also share across platforms (I get more traffic from Twitter than LinkedIn), so my own website looks nice in a Twitter card and people come to virtual real estate that I own.

If you want to get visible on LinkedIn but don’t want to publish articles, share ones that others have written, or create thoughtful posts.

There’s one more reason to create a presence on LinkedIn (and other social media) for PhDs. If you hate networking or reaching out to people (as some people have indicated to me that they do), creating an identity as a thought leader on LinkedIn brings people to you.

Case in point, since starting Roostervane, I haven’t had to reach out to people. I have lots of interesting people reaching out to me, and my network is growing every day.

8. Build your network

Growing a network should be a major goal for anyone who uses LinkedIn.

If you’re new to the platform, start building it. Some people start by importing their email contacts. Some add aunts, uncles, cousins, and high-school friends. You can add old employers (hopefully you left on good terms) and coworkers. If you want to you can add your fellow students or perhaps even your supervisor (although be careful with this…you want to create a fresh and new identity that’s hireable and some supervisors will push back).

The message that I started this guide with–the one that got me my first job–was not a request for a job. It was just a LinkedIn reach-out for a coffee that turned into so much more. You never know what can happen on this platform; that’s the beauty of it.

So that’s my guide to LinkedIn for PhDs. But really, it applies to most college graduates ! So if you happen to be teaching a class, it’s relevant here too!

Let me know if I forgot anything in the comments below or find me on LinkedIn.

You can see my LinkedIn profile here.

Read my story about leaving academia in Doctoring: Building a Life With a PhD–Available on Amazon.

  Psst… Did you know Roostervane has a YouTube channel? Here’s a video I made with some quick networking tips. Don’t forget to subscribe!

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Build Your LinkedIn Profile

Why use linkedin.

LinkedIn is a widespread social media platform used by job-seekers, employees, and employers to establish and maintain professional online presences. It is a valuable tool for developing your network, seeking jobs and internships, and developing your career.

Getting Started

When you make a LinkedIn account, the first task is crafting your profile. What you add to your profile will be visible to your connections and potential employers (depending upon privacy settings—see below). Once you establish your profile, update it as you would a  résumé to reflect your experiences and interests. Keep in mind, who is the audience you are trying to reach? How can you draw attention to what you have done and why you do it —this should not be a CV-like recounting of academic accomplishments alone.

The four major sections of a profile discussed here are the Intro , Summary , Experience , and Education . While there are other sections to consider when crafting your profile, these four sections necessitate the greatest degree of curation.

The Intro section includes a Headline , your pronouns, current role, industry, and location, and whether you are open to work or hiring. Think of this information, plus your headshot, as your LinkedIn business card. When you appear in search results, users will see this information alongside your name. Therefore, it is key that your Headline provides a snapshot of you and your aspirations.

Your Headline is a short, memorable professional slogan that conveys your professional brand, strengths/skills, and interests/goals.

• Needs Improvement: Graduate Student at Northwestern University
• Better : Neuroscience PhD Student at Northwestern | Expertise in SQL | Seeking Data Science Position
• Check out the profiles of students, alumni, and professionals in relevant industries. What works well? What does not? How are experiences framed?
• Under your settings, view the “Job Seeking Preferences” and if you are looking for internship or full-time opportunities, select “yes” to allow recruiters to know you are open to opportunities.

The About section provides space to articulate a longer version of your Headline , sharing the sum of your experiences and goals toward your aspirations. Think of this like an abstract of your interests and skills for a given professional space (or spaces).

Your Summary should build on your Headline . Use the Summary to describe who you are, including your background/experience, strengths/skills, accomplishments, and goals/aspirations. Tie these elements together into a cohesive professional narrative. Use industry keywords and keep it concise (4-6 sentences).

• Social scientist with 5 years of experience using qualitative and quantitative methods. Effective communicator, collaborator, project manager, and educator seeking to apply expertise in field of child development.
• Data scientist using time-series and weather sensor information from industrial machines to create preventive maintenance models. Programming: Proficient in Python (e.g., Pandas, Scikit-learn, Scipy, Bokeh, Tensorflow), MATLAB, R, GIT; Data Analysis/Database: Image processing, machine learning, working knowledge of SQL.

Experience & Education

The Experience and Education sections mirror the corresponding sections of a  résumé in which you itemize these data points.

Visibility Settings

In the settings menu, you can alter the visibility of the components of your profile. Privacy is a personal choice, but there is a distinct advantage to making your profile publicly visible.

• Select "Edit your public profile" to edit the visibility settings of your profile. From this editor, you can designate which parts of your profile you wish to be visible to any LinkedIn user.
• Your contact info: Share your contact info in your “About” section or in your settings, be sure your email address is at least visible to those you connect with.
• Profile viewing options : LinkedIn will inform a user when someone has viewed their profile. You can alter your Profile viewing options to curate whether someone sees your full intro or an anonymized version of your profile. Someone seeing that you have viewed their profile is actually a positive and may lead them to check out your profile.

Skip to Content

Here’s an Example of the Perfect LinkedIn Profile Summary, According to Harvard Career Experts

Published Wed, Sep 25 201911:07 AM EDT Updated Wed, Sep 25 20191:12 PM EDT

Dustin McKissen, Contributor @DMCKISSEN

If you want to have a successful career, maintaining an online presence on LinkedIn is crucial.

Not only is it an effective way to network with other professionals in your field, but it can get you noticed by others and potentially  land you several job opportunities .

In fact, I landed a great job at a major company because I regularly updated my profile and published career-related content almost daily. (That job ultimately inspired me to start my own company.)

Believe it or not, that was six years ago — and today, LinkedIn has only become increasingly important.

The LinkedIn profile summary

Simply signing up for an account, quickly filling in the blanks and then letting your profile remain dormant won’t do you any good.

Of the many elements that make up a strong profile, two of the most important ones are your professional headline and “About” section,  explain   career experts  at  Harvard University’s Office for Alumni Affairs and Career Advancement .

Together, they make up what’s known as your “LinkedIn profile summary,” and it’s one of the first things people see when they visit your page. Your professional headline is especially important because it’s the text that gets displayed in search results for both Google and LinkedIn.

Below is an  example  of a strong LinkedIn profile summary, according to the career experts at Harvard:

NAME: Jessica Yan

PROFESSIONAL HEADLINE: Research Scientist | Ph.D. Candidate | Data Analytics, Biotech, Pharma

“ABOUT” SECTION: I’m a research scientist working to better understand how neural activity motivates and shapes human behavior. My expertise includes project design and management, data analysis and interpretation, and the development and implementation of research tools. I enjoy generating new ideas and devising feasible solutions to broadly relevant problems. My colleagues would describe me as a driven, resourceful individual who maintains a positive, proactive attitude when faced with adversity. Currently, I’m seeking opportunities that will allow me to develop and promote technologies that benefit human health. Specific fields of interest include data analytics, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals.

Here’s what makes it a strong profile summary:

• Can be skimmed in 30 seconds or less
• Professional headline is below 120 characters, lists career focus and components of work
• Includes industry-related keywords, core skills, strengths, talents and interests
• Well written in a professional style, no spelling and grammatical mistakes
• Answers questions that provides deeper insight about the individual: What makes her unique? Where is her career headed? How would others describe her? What are her values and personal traits?

LinkedIn profile checklist

While your profile summary holds major emphasis, you’ll need to spend time on savvying up the rest of it. Here’s a quick checklist of the basics to help you get started:

• Upload your photo . Ideally, this should be done in professional attire. Profiles with photos are 14 times more likely to be viewed,  according to the career experts .
• Customize your public profile URL.  The address should look something like:  www.linkedin.com/in/yourname . This will make it easier for you to include it on business cards, resumes and email signatures.
• Enhance your profile with additional sections.  Displaying further information (e.g., accomplishments, skills, volunteer experience, certifications, expertise) can also increase the amount of times people view your profile,  notes LinkedIn . This, in turn, can help you build your network and connect to new opportunities.
• Elaborate on your work history in the “Experience” section.  Use targeted keywords and  include specific information  about what you’ve done in your previous positions that led to measurable results. (Don’t lie about titles or duties; you’ll likely get called out by old colleagues — and it will be embarrassing.)
• Education : Include, in reverse chronological order, any programs or schools you went to.
• Customize your “Skills & Endorsements” section.  Ensuring a relevant list of skills on your profile allows others in your network to endorse you. (Skills with the most endorsements will be listed first). This will also help others understand your strengths and match you with the right opportunities.
• Include recommendations.  These should come from former supervisors, coworkers, clients, vendors, professors or fellow students. (Basically, anyone who will have good things to say about you and your work.)

Be an active member and build your network

Remember, the more active you are, the better. So as you move on to new jobs or master new skills, make it a point to update your profile.

Being active also means engaging with your community. You can do this by:

• Sharing updates and interesting content.  This can include anything from new accomplishments and industry announcements to a blog post you’ve written or an article that people in your network may want to read.
• Inviting past and current coworkers, classmates, friends and family to connect.  I’m often asked whether I request or accept connections from people I’ve never met. For me, it’s a yes — but  only  if I’m genuinely interested in developing a professional relationship with the person and their field of work is somehow related.
• Engaging with your connections’ “Recent Activity.”  LinkedIn allows you to see what folks in your network are posting, liking and commenting on. If they shared a blog post that you enjoyed reading, for example, why not give it a like or reply with a nice comment?
• Join groups.  This will help you strengthen connections with people who share common skills, experiences, industry affiliations and goals.

Dustin McKissen is the founder of  McKissen + Company , a strategic communications firm in St. Charles, Missouri. He was also named one of LinkedIn’s “Top Voices in Management and Corporate Culture.” Follow him on LinkedIn  here.

The Savvy Scientist

Experiences of a London PhD student and beyond

How to Master LinkedIn for Academics & PhD Students

Whichever stage you’re at in your academic journey it’s never too soon to start building up your presence on LinkedIn. While LinkedIn is commonly known as a platform for job seekers and professionals, it also provides a great way for academics and PhD students to showcase our research and engage with others in our fields.

In this post we’ll walk through my top tips for networking with LinkedIn. We’ll begin with covering why having a LinkedIn profile can be a good idea, move on to polishing your profile and how to engage with the community, then discuss how to expand your network.

I’ve also included a few bonus tips at the end for anyone who’s approaching the end of their PhD and looking to make the move into industry.

Tight on time? Be sure to download my LinkedIn Top Tips guide from the free resource library so you can start putting these suggestions into practice.

Why You Should Use LinkedIn as an Academic Researcher

I’ll admit that I used to think that LinkedIn wasn’t useful for anyone outside of the corporate world. However, despite not using any other social media, I’ve been actively using LinkedIn as a researcher for a number of years and think it is well worth setting up an account.

Here’s why:

1. Stay up to date with developments in your field

Yes, us researchers do use LinkedIn! I see loads of new and interesting work getting shared on LinkedIn: not just people announcing their own papers getting published but also highlighting interesting studies they’ve seen.

You can follow updates for academics on places like Google Scholar but the perk of LinkedIn is that: 1) people will also share their own take on the work 2) since LinkedIn is a network you’ll also be exposed to new work from your connections connections etc. I know that a lot of people like Twitter/X for this stuff too.

For this reason I suggest adding people that you meet at conferences, currently work with, or would like to work with (more on that in a second!).

2. Learn from others

Alright so I’ll admit that the idea of using any social media platform to learn things can quickly descend into doom scrolling.

However, given that people generally treat LinkedIn as a lot more of a professional platform than most others, it does seem to be a lot more curated (i.e. useful) if you’re following the right people. I often see people sharing useful tutorials, workflows, interesting findings, etc, alongside general cool science.

3. Expand your reach

You can of course use LinkedIn as a platform to share your own research, thoughts etc. This makes it more likely that relevant researchers could see your work and will help you to build your own personal brand if you’re into that.

4. Career moves and job opportunities

The obvious reason! I see loads of job adverts on LinkedIn and it’s easy to set up alerts for specific companies or job roles. If you’re considering moving into industry at some stage this can be a fantastic place to look for open positions.

Sometimes I’ve known PhD students or academics to urgently set up a LinkedIn profile out of desperation when they’re looking for a job. It is much better to gradually set one up, as we’ll come onto shortly.

5. Collaborations

Maybe you’re not looking for a job, but networking via LinkedIn can still be a useful way of building connections with people you may want to work with: by collaborating!

For this reason I suggest adding interesting people you meet, or reaching out to people who you know do cool work. We’ll discuss more about the best ways to connect with them shortly.

6. I nteresting academic opportunities

LinkedIn can act as a notice board for different opportunities which may become available.

For instance:

Now that we’ve covered off some of the benefits of using LinkedIn as a researcher, we’ll next go into some practical ways to network on LinkedIn.

Polish your Profile

Your LinkedIn profile is the first impression you make on potential connections, fellow academics, collaborators, and employers. So the best place to start is by enhancing your profile to ensure it accurately represents who you are and what you do.

Some of my key recommendations are:

• Start early and enhance it over time – filling out a lot of blank spaces can seem intimidating, so make things easier for yourself by just doing a high level summary now and gradually fleshing it out.
• Make it visually appealing – use a professional headshot and interesting background picture.
• Regularly add new projects and publications – it can be tricky to remember your achievements after a lot of time has passed, so make it a regular habit to add new information to your LinkedIn. While you’re at it I’d also encourage this for your CV as well.

Once you’ve got your Linkedin profile set up, you’ll be ready to move onto the next step: interacting with others on the platform.

Engage with the Community

LinkedIn isn’t just a place to display your credentials, it’s a dynamic community where you can build relationships and share your insights.

Here are a few ways you can start engaging on LinkedIn:

1. Add People You Already Know

Search for people you already have connections with, this could include both your current colleagues and previous course-mates. Building this initial network creates a strong foundation for what will come next.

2. Interact with Other Posts

I feel like a YouTuber saying this but like, comment, and share posts related to your field. Offer meaningful comments that showcase your expertise.

This not only helps you build relationships but also increases your visibility.

3. Get Active!

Interacting with other posts is all well and good, but it’s also important to actively share your knowledge and research with your network.

Write posts about interesting papers, developments, or challenges in your field. This invites discussion and shows that you’re actively engaged in your area of study. Sharing your work could also lead to collaboration opportunities!

Expand Your Network

Building a meaningful network on LinkedIn involves more than just connecting with your immediate contacts. It’s about expanding your reach and connecting with professionals and researchers who share your interests.

Here are some ways you can expand your LinkedIn network as a researcher:

1. Join Relevant Groups and Follow Hashtags

LinkedIn groups are like virtual conferences and seminars, where people in your field gather to discuss the latest research and trends. Find groups related to your research interests and join them. Participate in discussions, share your insights, and connect with group members.

It’s also possible to follow hashtags to stay updated on topics of interest. Check out the video below for further information on how to do this.

2. Find Your LinkedIn QR Code for Faster Networking at Conferences

LinkedIn offers a QR code feature that makes connecting with new people easy. When you meet someone at a conference, simply give them your QR code to scan and you’ll be connected!

You can find your QR code by logging into the LinkedIn app on your phone and clicking on the search bar. Upon doing so a QR code symbol should appear on the right-hand side. Once clicked it will provide your code, ready to be shared and scanned.

3. Add a Personalised Note When Cold-Contacting People

While connecting with people you know is straightforward, you’ll also want to reach out to professionals and researchers you haven’t met yet. When sending connection requests to people you haven’t interacted with before, always include a personalised note.

This is really important! Personally I don’t ever tend to accept invites from people I don’t know if they’ve not added a note, or aren’t clearly working on interesting topics. I can only assume other people take this approach too.

Also, even if someone does accept your invite, if you’ve not sent them a message they don’t have any reason to know why you’re interesting in connecting.

• If you’ve met someone at an event, just send them a quick note reminding them of who you are.
• If you’ve never met them before, explain why you want to connect, how your interests align, or what you hope to gain from the connection.

This extra step will significantly increase both the chances of them accepting the invite and how meaningful your connection with them is.

Example notes you can use

• “Hey {X}, I really enjoyed your talk at {a conference} and would love to connect. Thanks”
• ”Hi {X}, after my PhD I’m hoping to move into {new career field} and would really appreciate a quick call to hear about how you were able to make the leap.”

It’s worth saying that yes, you can ask for something immediately, but it’s even better if you’re able to offer your new connection something as well. Do expect that they will look at your profile before accepting.

Bonus: LinkedIn Job Search Tips

Finishing up your PhD and/or considering a move into industry?

If you’re in that position now, here are a few things you can do to maximise your chances of securing a role.

1. Target Specific Companies

Already have a specific industry or company in mind? Below are three ways to boost your chances of success.

• Stay Informed: Follow companies you are interested in working for to stay up to date about job openings, company news, and developments in your chosen field.
• Engage: Interact with the content companies post on LinkedIn. Commenting and sharing their updates might get you noticed by their recruiters.
• Leverage the Alumni Tool: Use LinkedIn’s Alumni Tool to see where graduates from your university work. This can help you identify companies that have hired people with your academic background.

2. Optimise Your Profile for Job Searches

Use relevant keywords in your profile to make it easier to discover in job searches. Include skills, qualifications, and job titles you’re interested in.

3. Use LinkedIn Job Search Tools

LinkedIn has an abundance of tools specifically designed for job seekers.

Here are two ways to use these to your advantage:

• Activate Job Preferences: Let recruiters know you’re open to job opportunities by discreetly activating the “Open to Work” feature in your profile.
• Set Job Alerts: Create job alerts based on your preferred criteria.

4. Utilise Networking

Your LinkedIn network can be an incredibly valuable resource when searching for job opportunities. Start by reaching out to connections who work in your desired industry and seek advice or referrals. I personally know of people who have been successful in securing roles this way after struggling to otherwise get a foot in the door after graduating.

It can also be a good idea to follow thought leaders in your chosen field and engage with their posts. This will help to ensure you stay up to date on the latest insights and there’s always the chance it could end up leading to a job opportunity.

Finally, be sure to look out for and attend online webinars and events within your industry to further expand your network.

Summary: How to Master LinkedIn for Academics and PhD Students

LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for academics and PhD students, it allows you to showcase your research and can help to open up opportunities for collaboration.

By following these tips you can build your online presence, stay informed about the latest trends in your field and put yourself in the best position for your next career move.

You can find all of the key points available in my free LinkedIn Top Tips guide, available to download from the resource library .

I’d highly encourage everyone to set up a LinkedIn profile, even if you’re at an early stage in your PhD and dead-set on staying within academia. It’s so much easier to build it up gradually than to try and tackle it all in one go and you never know what opportunities it may lead to! If you want to add me here is my profile .

Happy networking!

Do you have any other suggestions for how academics and PhD students can use LinkedIn? Let me know in the comments!

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Effective LinkedIn Headline for Students – Killer Headline Examples

A LinkedIn headline is more than just a quick line about your current position or studies; it’s an impactful statement that showcases your professional brand.

For students, having a compelling LinkedIn headline can make all the difference, setting them apart from their peers and creating enticing opportunities.

This blog will guide you through crafting a killer LinkedIn headline, whether you’re an undergraduate, a recent graduate, or a PhD student.

We’ll provide practical tips, proven formulas, and stellar examples that will help you optimize your LinkedIn profile, making it irresistible for potential employers, hiring managers, and networking opportunities.

Let’s help you leverage LinkedIn effectively for your career growth.

What is a LinkedIn Headline for Students and Why is it Important?

A LinkedIn headline for students refers to the professional title or summary that appears below a student’s name and profile picture on their LinkedIn profile.

It serves as a brief introduction to showcase a student’s skills, qualifications, and career goals.

The headline is the first thing recruiters or potential employers see, making it a critical component of a strong LinkedIn profile.

It is important for students to have an attention-grabbing headline as it can attract recruiters to click on their profile and learn more about them.

Including relevant keywords in the headline increases the chances of the student’s profile appearing in search results when recruiters search for specific skills or qualifications.

By crafting a strong LinkedIn headline, students can effectively market themselves and stand out in a competitive job market, allowing them to connect with professionals and networking opportunities that align with their career aspirations. 

Types of LinkedIn in headlines:

For students, there are two main types of Linkedin headlines:

• Undergraduate
• Postgraduate (Masters and PhD students)

Here is what you do for both types.

LinkedIn headline examples for undergraduate students

If you are an undergraduate student here are some simple structure that you can follow that will still allow you to be found in LinkedIn search. 

Some general tips across all categories for students include:

• Start off with your current status or what you are aspiring to be.
• Include your area of study or specialization.
• Mention any relevant skills you have acquired from your courses or internships.
• Convey your eagerness to apply your learnings in a professional setting or your ambition for future growth.
• If you’ve completed an internship or any relevant projects, include that in your headline.
• Make sure to include keywords related to your field of study or the industry you’re interested in.

My formula for a crazy effective LinkedIn headline for masters and PhD students

The key to crafting an effective LinkedIn headline as a student lies in answering and weaving together three fundamental questions.

The significance of a simple yet powerful headline cannot be overstated.

It’s not merely about stating your field of study but about demonstrating the skills you are honing and the true value of your research.

Here’s the formula for sculpting your headline:

who you serve + the value you bring + how you do it

Let’s dive into each component:

1. Who you serve

Most people undertake research with the intention to make a positive impact. The first part of your headline should highlight the primary beneficiaries of your research. You could be aiding a specific industry, a professional community, or conducting ground-breaking blue sky research.

Examples could be:

• Serving the energy sector
• Empowering the medical community
• Revolutionizing education for students
• Innovating solutions for environmental challenges

Identifying who you serve allows others to quickly grasp who stands to benefit the most from your work.

2. The value you bring

Your headline should also encapsulate what you’re helping these groups achieve. It’s about portraying the potential outcomes of your research, and why your work matters.

Here are some examples:

• Advancing renewable energy solutions
• Enhancing understanding of human physiology
• Democratizing access to quality education
• Promoting sustainable and green solutions

Including this component will allow viewers to understand the real-world applications of your research.

3. The way that you do that

Finally, describe how you’re conducting your research. This offers insights into your expertise and skill set.

Examples might be:

• Through cutting-edge fiber optic technology
• Utilizing atomic force microscopy
• Synthesizing innovative pharmaceutical compounds
• Developing sustainable materials and processes

By adding this part, viewers can gauge the specific skills you’re developing throughout your PhD, which might trigger interests for potential collaboration or information sharing.

Crafting Your Headline Combine these three elements to craft a LinkedIn headline that truly represents you and your work.

For instance here are some excellent LinkedIn headlines for masters students and PhDs:

• Empowering the healthcare sector to enhance patient monitoring via state-of-the-art fiber optics
• Revolutionizing the energy sector by developing cost-effective hydrogen fuel through novel catalysts
• Assisting the solar industry in producing efficient solar cells via sustainable solar paint
• Pioneering efficient drug manufacturing processes with flow chemistry

Integrating a powerful headline like this on your LinkedIn profile not only helps others comprehend your unique value proposition but also encourages them to reach out for collaboration or more information about your expertise and research.

Here is a worksheet from a workshop that I have used with academics to formulate the best healing and about section.

How many characters does the LinkedIn headline allow?

The LinkedIn headline allows for a maximum of 220 characters.

It is crucial to make use of this prime real estate on your LinkedIn profile to create a compelling headline that accurately represents your professional identity and highlights your unique value proposition.

A well-crafted LinkedIn headline can make a significant impact on your profile’s success and contribute to attracting the right opportunities and connections. 

What does a great Linkedin heading look like?

There are a few things that you need to keep in mind if you want your LinkedIn headline to stand out. 

According to recruiters from high-ranking companies such as Hulu, Google, and Netflix, a strategically crafted headline can dramatically increase your visibility.

LinkedIn operates as a professional search engine, meaning that your headline significantly influences whether you’re discovered by potential employers. However, misinformation online has led many to develop unimpactful headlines.

To counter this, it’s important to understand the role of headlines in shaping your professional image.

1. Highlighting Your Value Proposition Instead of Job Needs

Instead of detailing what you’re seeking from your career or hinting at desperation, your LinkedIn headline should focus on the value you can add to the world.

Imagine a snack bar packaging talking about the company’s revenue goals – it’s not appealing.

Similarly, your headline should reflect your unique attributes and skills that make you an asset to potential employers.

Frame your headline from the perspective of what you bring to the table, not what you want from the table.

2. Leveraging Keywords Over Buzzwords for LinkedIn Visibility

While it might be tempting to fill your LinkedIn headline with popular buzzwords like ‘passionate’, ‘creative’, or ‘collaborative’, these often don’t hold any real weight.

Instead, focus on using industry-specific keywords.

LinkedIn’s algorithms, much like other search engines, prioritize profiles that effectively utilize relevant keywords.

If you’re uncertain about the crucial keywords for your target career, resources like optimization guides can be invaluable.

3. Applying Practical Strategies: Examples of Effective LinkedIn Headlines for Students

To put these principles into practice, consider this formula: “Keywords for your target role + Industry/Area of expertise + Unique value”.

For example, if you’re a mechanical engineering student interested in the automotive industry and have placed third in a human-powered vehicle competition, your headline could read: “Mechanical Engineering Student | Automotive Enthusiast | Ranked Third in Human-Powered Vehicle Competition”.

By following this model and tailoring it to your own experiences, you can craft a LinkedIn headline that showcases your unique skills and captures the right attention.

Common mistakes found in Linkedin headlines:

Avoiding common pitfalls in creating a LinkedIn headline is just as important as understanding what to include.

Here’s a list of things to avoid in order to optimize your LinkedIn headline effectively:

• Being vague or generic: Stay away from generic terms like “unemployed”, “seeking opportunities” or “looking for a job”. These don’t provide any information about your skills, experiences, or career aspirations.
• Overusing buzzwords: Avoid commonly overused terms like ‘passionate’, ‘experienced’, ‘hard-working’, ‘motivated’. They are so overused that they lose their impact and make your profile seem less unique.
• Using a job title without context: A job title alone might not provide enough information about what you do. If you decide to include your job title, try to accompany it with additional details or keywords that highlight your skills or industry.
• Including personal information: LinkedIn is a professional platform. Therefore, refrain from including personal information such as your age, marital status, or other non-professional details.
• Making spelling or grammatical errors: Any spelling or grammatical errors in your headline can be seen as lack of attention to detail and may lead to a negative first impression.
• Being too lengthy: While LinkedIn allows up to 220 characters for your headline, it’s important to be concise and to the point. Too much information can overwhelm the reader and dilute your main message.
• Not using relevant keywords: Keywords are crucial to help you show up in search results. Not including relevant keywords can make it harder for potential employers or connections to find your profile.
• Writing in the third person: Your LinkedIn profile is a personal representation of you. Avoid writing in the third person as it can seem impersonal.
• Using excessive jargon or acronyms: While it’s important to showcase your skills and industry knowledge, avoid using too much jargon or too many acronyms. Keep in mind your audience may come from various industries and might not be familiar with specific terms.
• Failing to update regularly: Your headline should be up to date and accurately reflect your current position, projects or career objectives. A headline that’s outdated can give the impression that you’re not active on LinkedIn.

Avoid these mistakes to create a headline that is effective, clear, and professional, and will make you stand out to potential employers and connections on LinkedIn.

Wrapping up – best LinkedIn profile headline

The importance of an effective LinkedIn headline for students and recent graduates cannot be overstated.

Whether you’re on the hunt for internships, trying to break into the job market, or keen to make meaningful industry connections, having a strong LinkedIn headline can set you apart in the competitive professional landscape.

Your headline is one of the first things potential employers, hiring managers, or networking contacts see when they come across your profile. It’s your initial pitch, your opportunity to make a compelling first impression. 

For undergrads, our formula emphasizes the importance of highlighting your current status, your area of specialization, and your professional ambitions. Make sure you spotlight relevant skills you’ve gained from academic courses or internships and show enthusiasm to apply them in a professional environment.

For Masters and PhD students , your LinkedIn headline should clearly outline who benefits from your research, the value you bring, and how you do it. Remember, this is about more than just your area of study—it’s about showcasing the tangible impact and value of your work.

Crafting an excellent LinkedIn headline is an art—one that combines strategic keyword usage, a clear display of your individual strengths, and a precise showcase of your professional identity.

By leveraging these tips, students and job seekers alike can amplify their LinkedIn presence, leading to new opportunities and fruitful connections in their desired industries.

So, go ahead, dive in, refine your headline, and join the millions of LinkedIn users standing out for all the right reasons.

Tthe goal is to not just be part of the crowd but to stand out in it. That’s the power of a killer LinkedIn headline.

Happy networking!

Dr Andrew Stapleton has a Masters and PhD in Chemistry from the UK and Australia. He has many years of research experience and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate at a number of Universities. Although having secured funding for his own research, he left academia to help others with his YouTube channel all about the inner workings of academia and how to make it work for you.

Thank you for visiting Academia Insider.

We are here to help you navigate Academia as painlessly as possible. We are supported by our readers and by visiting you are helping us earn a small amount through ads and affiliate revenue - Thank you!

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10 Ways to Create an All-Star Graduate LinkedIn Profile

• Post author By Maebellyne Ventura

Graduate recruiters are using LinkedIn to find the best candidates in the market. Meanwhile tech savvy job hunters have been using the site for a number of years to network with other professionals in the field or to ‘follow’ companies they wish to work for.

As a graduate, it’s important not only to have an up-to-date CV but also to have an optimised LinkedIn profile to maximise your chances of finding your dream job. It’s a powerful tool that can help open doors and alert you to new opportunities if you invest the time and energy on using the site to its full potential. Here are 10 top tips on creating a killer LinkedIn graduate profile:

1) Write your headline:

LinkedIn automatically puts your current position as your profile headline. Change it . Try to stand out by stating what you have to offer and identifying your unique selling point to attract recruiters.

Psychology Graduate, Specialising in Survey Design. Interested in Market Research and Analysis

DON’T:

Motivated Graduate Looking to Work in Market Research

READ MORE: 10 LinkedIn Headlines that Stand Out from the Crowd

2) Choose an appropriate photo:

LinkedIn is not Facebook, so having a photo of you holding a glass of wine is a no-no. Neither should you feel that you have to put your passport photo up. Choose a good headshot with a neutral/inoffensive background. You want to be personable and yet professional. People will make assumptions based on your photos so you might as well make it a good one.

READ MORE: Top 7 LinkedIn Profile Pictures You Should NEVER Use

3) Use keywords:

Use keywords when describing your work. The more industry-relevant keywords you have in your profile, the higher you are on a recruiter’s search rankings. This increases the chances of your profile getting noticed. Breakout the keywords in the skills section since this will come up in search as well, extra points if you can rack up Endorsements for your skills.

Keywords is not just about industry buzzwords. Often graduates forget that the programming languages, or industry specific tools like Google Analytics, Photoshop, etc. are keywords that should be found on their profile rather than just something like “campaign management”.

READ MORE: How to Boost Your LinkedIn Endorsements

4) Only include relevant jobs:

If you’re applying to be an accountant for one of the Big 4 you probably don’t need to say you served Big Macs at 16!

5) Complete the summary:

Treat it like your short personal advertisement/covering letter. Assert your personality and sell yourself. There’s also a lot of scope to be creative here, why not try embedding a short video clip where you talk about yourself?

RELATED: Do Yourself a Favor and Spruce Up Your LinkedIn Summary!

6) Highlight what you can do:

LinkedIn has introduced a new section where you can add your skills, languages, certifications and publications.  The skills section allows recruiters to search for a particular combination of skills, which you may well have. As above, get endorsements for your skills where you can.

• Good: Brag about your achievements
• Not-So-Good: Lie or stretch the truth about the number and extent of your skills

You can also make your profile a bit more visual by adding links, Slideshare presentations, videos and images to showcase your work. As in the example below, I have included links to other websites I’ve worked on as well as information about each individual project I’ve been involved in.

7) Get recommendations:

If you did an internship and made a great impression on your employers, don’t be afraid to approach them for a recommendation . It lends your profile more credibility. Plus, what’s better than a third-party endorsement?

RELATED:   LinkedIn Recommendations: How Many Do You Need and How Do You Get Them?

8) Claim your vanity URL:

Personalise the web address for your LinkedIn profile. This helps your results especially if employers search for you on Google as well as making it easy to share the link to your profile.

9) Adjust your public profile settings:

Go to the settings and select which sections are visible on your public profile. I would recommend having the summary, your current position, skills and education visible. There’s no point in crafting a killer profile and then hiding it under a bushel.

10) Update regularly:

Your profile should evolve with you. It’s been a while since I’ve been a fresh graduate so I’ve made sure to update my own  LinkedIn profile  at appropriate points in my career to reflect the changes. By constantly updating your profile, you’ll have a handy jump-off point whenever you need to update your CV and look for a new challenge.

Do you have any other tips? Let us know in the comments below!

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• Tags Career Advice , endorsements , Graduate , Headline , How-To , keywords , LinkedIn , LinkedIn Endorsements , Profile , public , public profile , skills , Social Media , update

By Maebellyne Ventura

Maebellyne Ventura is the Digital Marketing Manager at Experis Switzerland , an IT recruitment specialist. She is also one of the founders of Clever Biscuit , a technology start-up creating simple and innovative products. Follow Maebellyne on Twitter @Maebellyne .

LinkedIn profile and summary for students: the complete guide

Profile and LinkedIn summary for students: the complete guide.

Are you a student or recent graduate and you have the ambition to enjoy professional life to the fullest after your studies? You know it better than anyone: social networks and self-marketing are of utmost importance.

An online presence on LinkedIn , as long as one knows how to use it well, is indicative of a desire to become an actor in one’s professional life, a curiosity towards an extended network, a dynamism and a modernity that will always be strengths.

If I have already worked out the perfect LinkedIn profile checklist , I would like to specify this theme even more by addressing myself to students and young graduates, these people on the edge of working life, still learning, eager for knowledge and overflowing with energy to conquer the career they wish to accomplish. .

Do not wait for complete your studies to build the foundations of your future, and follow the guide for your LinkedIn profile to open doors for you!

1. Why use LinkedIn as a student or recent graduate?

LinkedIn is the hub of the online professional world. With just a few clicks, you may come into contact with people on the other end of the world, share information with trades that attract you, and more simply to present yourself to this globally extended network. You therefore have everything to gain for the future by frequenting this vast network and even more … by presenting yourself there in the best possible way!

LinkedIn is a very powerful SEO platform , and by typing your first and last name on Google, your LinkedIn profile will appear in the first results. This visibility should not be overlooked when we know that most recruiters these days do research on the internet before meeting candidates for positions or their future interns.

Nota Bene : if LinkedIn will be among the first results, it is also possible that your Facebook or other old blogs are in the game. So be careful and “Clean up” your tracks by removing unflattering photos from your last drunken evening, the revolutionary speeches of your adolescence and all that could, near or far, harm your reputation and professionalism at least on the first page of Google and Google image …

Be present on LinkedIn, with an impactful LinkedIn profile and an optimal presentation of yourself can be a major asset for your future working life, and the current development of your professional prospects. LinkedIn is not just a virtual CV, it’s more than that! By daring to think outside the box of classic curriculum vitae , you mark the spirits and come out of the crowd. LinkedIn brings together millions of students, it is in your interest not to go unnoticed, and the social network itself helps you do this by offering you a profile to complete.

2. A Perfect Student Profile and LinkedIn Summary!

Let’s get to the heart of the matter topic and let’s tackle the topic of this article: how to have a profile and a summary for perfect student?

You have it without doubt noticed, a LinkedIn profile is made up of several sections:

• Achievements (includes your publications, your projects, your prizes and distinctions if you have, the languages you speak, etc.)

Your profile is infinitely modular, you can add or subtract what you want, and adjust privacy settings. Ideally, make sure you are visible by the greatest number and therefore to have a public profile, so that Internet users, even if they are not part of your LinkedIn network, may have access to the main information about you.

If you already have a LinkedIn profile, let’s look at how you can improve it, and if you don’t have one, let’s make it perfect!

3. Student LinkedIn profile and summary: your LinkedIn profile picture

Any good profile that self-respecting has a picture of you. This is one of the main criteria that will push others to view your profile. Without a photo, you will only have unlikely to prove yourself on LinkedIn… A profile with photo multiplies its chances of being consulted by 10!

As we are on a professional social network, exit the photos of you on vacation with a glass in hand, group photos with your friends, or artistic photos back facing a sunset (examples among many others, it’s up to you to use common sense). The idea is to show up for your life active! Your photo should therefore show your face at its best. day, as well as your bust in a decent and professional type outfit shirt, or tailor.

Also think about the quality. If necessary, have your photo taken by someone from your entourage. Do not water down the photo too much: it needs to looks like ! But don’t be too dilettante either …

Above all, do not forget smile ! Not the forced smile, no, but the inviting little smile and friendly person who will give a very good first impression of you to Internet users.

For further : the secrets of a perfect LinkedIn photo .

4 . LinkedIn student profile and summary: your summary

The summary is a essential section for a good LinkedIn profile. This is the part where you can let your creativity run free, and talk about yourself in engaging, relevant and sincere.

The summary of your LinkedIn profile should not be, as the name suggests (very paradoxical, elsewhere), a summary of your educational and / or professional background, nor a classic cover letter. We will see later that the other sections LinkedIn profile fulfills this role very well.

No, the summary is above all a presentation of you AND WHAT YOU CAN BRING! Which are your plans? Have you made any significant trips / projects? For what reasons should we choose you over another? You can talk about yourself in terms that sound like you and put you in value, without however falling into the sales discourse seen and reviewed a thousand times by recruiters. The little extra: add links to your creations, if you have any.

Make a sort introspection and take your time to write your profile summary LinkedIn. Think calmly about your current situation, then do it. backwards and go back in time to explain the reasons that grow in the direction you are going, through your studies. Without ever falling into fictionalized writing, unless you wanted to become a bestselling author, bring in your own words a little humanism in this professional world that is sometimes still too standardized and subject to archaic codes . While remaining professional, do you talk about original way, to stand out from the crowd. Sometimes a simple sentence a slightly offbeat, a little more rhythmic than those already used by hundreds of thousands of students will mark the spirits. Be that student who stands out.

Well, that still seems abstract or difficult to you, that was without counting my extreme generosity … here is ? THE LinkedIn summary frame for student! Years of research to arrive at this result: I hardly exaggerate! So take these tips as gifts …

5. LinkedIn student profile and summary: your experiences

There you go be able to tell all LinkedIn members about your professional experiences. As a student, these can be restricted, and that is all is normal! In the description of what LinkedIn calls the “Current position”, describe very briefly the field of activity in which one you want to work on next. If you want for example simply be a salesperson in the automotive sector. This definition of the current position is kind of your subtitle and will appear under your name each time it appears on the network LinkedIn.

Regarding your professional experience itself, you can include all your odd summer jobs, your internships, etc. Once you have entered the professional life with your first “real” job, you will be able to hide your previous experiences if they are irrelevant to the continuation of your career.

For each experience that you post on your student LinkedIn profile, you have the possibility of providing a description. Often, student jobs are not very rich in terms of responsibilities and tasks, you will surely miss elements to describe. It does not matter ! Cunning and maximizing your chances to make an impression by describing what the position in question has for you learned with regard to the targeted position! A restaurant job has you certainly learned to be reactive, agile, but above all smiling. A mission temporary worker in the factory has no doubt made you know the importance of the spirit teamwork and coordination. An internship in your chosen field has certainly enabled you to understand that it is also necessary to deal with behind the scenes. Every lived experience, if you think about it, has brought something. It’s up to you to find those skills that may not have something to do with the next position you are running for, but which have made you the determined, motivated and determined person that you are today.

Just like for the summary of your student LinkedIn profile, do not hesitate to share your feelings about your experiences. Don’t make it too long, of course, but dare to say in a few words what your career has brought you, now that you have a little perspective on this one.

Have no shame to even mention very short internships, or jobs that at first glance you seem unflattering. Recruiters and decision makers will appreciate always a student who has multiplied experiences, in addition to these studies. This proves your involvement, your endurance, your ability to juggle between work and your classes, and shows that you are not afraid to go to work while others take it easy at the beach between July and August.

How? ‘Or’ What structure the content of your experiences on LinkedIn?

• Use lots of keywords to match recruiters’ searches
• Structure the content so that it is airy, if necessary use the LinkedIn emojis
• Put a sentence of context: which presents your role
• Put your missions with chips
• Finally, end with some key results or figures. Because working is good, but showing that you have delivered results is better and differentiating!

6. LinkedIn profile and summary for students: your training

After these steps crucial, let’s move on to another just as important: your journey school. On LinkedIn, this section allows you to tell Internet users your course. In principle, the ideal is to start with high school. Before, this is not necessarily necessary. For each diploma obtained or training followed, several fields are available and allow the precise description of the content of elements:

• The school you have frequented
• The diploma obtained
• The domain studies
• The period during which you followed the training
• Activities extra-curricular that you followed
• A description (useful for including options!)

You are not obliged to describe everything in great detail, especially if some training courses do not necessarily have a direct relationship with your vision of the future professional in which you project yourself.

The important point: mention your school to appear on its page and be found easily.

Example of a case where the school page on LinkedIn is not filled in:

Good example: the school page is well mentioned, your LinkedIn profile is linked to it, the keywords are there and it is structured:

7. LinkedIn profile and summary for students: your skills and recommendations

In your profile LinkedIn student, you have the possibility to indicate skills. In depending on the elements already present in your LinkedIn profile, skills will be suggested to help you complete this section.

This is where you will be able to indicate your knowledge, the software you master, and anything that seems relevant to you in the context of your LinkedIn profile student.

Three general skills are highlighted by the social network LinkedIn, it is up to you to determine which are the main areas where you excel, and as a student, in which ones you want to build your future career.

No need to put fifty skills, the main thing is to target what characterizes your course and the achievements of your previous experiences.

It is in this section that members of the social network LinkedIn will be able to recommend. skills that you have indicated on your profile!

When it comes to recommendations, a recruiter doesn’t want to take a risk, he wants someone who has recommendations that bring credit. I invite you to read the dedicated article for all about LinkedIn recommendations .

8. LinkedIn profile and summary for students: the other sections of your profile

When I you was saying that your LinkedIn profile is not just a virtual CV or a simple motivation, it was because developing your LinkedIn profile as a student allows you to add things that would not have their place in a classic CV.

The interface of LinkedIn allows its members to discover others in a comprehensive way. In Indeed, you are free to add or subtract sections from your profile. However, always think about the relevance of what you indicate. Besides the main sections that we have seen previously, let’s discover together what that you can add to your profile to complete it:

• Publications

If you appeared in the newspaper (related to your studies or the targeted job, of course) share the article with the members of LinkedIn. If you have been interviewed, link to the video or transcription. If you just want to give an example of what you are able to produce, publish an internship report that you are proud of, your thesis, your thesis, some articles on your blog, etc.

Indicate the level of modern languages that you practice. Knowledge of a foreign language is always a real asset for an application.

• Experiences of volunteering

Always well perceived by others, the commitment to associations and volunteering is a real added value for you since it is an experience and a testimony of your commitment … Even unpaid.

You can talk about all your projects here, including personal. By indulging yourself a little and explaining the reasons for your choices and your motivations, you play on the sensitive chord of your readers by “Becoming” more human in their eyes, more accessible. LinkedIn can sometimes resemble a catalog of candidates that we leaf through in the hope of falling on a crush. Know how to stand out and dare to talk about you, really.

PS: I was recruited in my first job thanks to to the hobbies section of my CV! Yes, the manager who recruited me was a former French judo champion… The values of sport have brought us together!

• Others headings

There are other sections (courses, patent, organization, examination result, prizes and distinctions) that you can fill in if you have enough to do it and if the relevance is still at appointment ! The more you put in, the more keywords, the more it is effective… Unless it’s off topic or doesn’t bring anything professional.

9. Some tips for a perfect student LinkedIn profile

Think keywords.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, LinkedIn is a very well referenced site on Google , so don’t skimp on keywords to accentuate the SEO of your student profile. So that your name and the industry in which you work are associated, build the writings of your student LinkedIn profile with relevant keywords. Do some research to find the keywords that best suit your needs.

Take care of your spelling

We can’t say it enough, but a good spelling will always be a significant asset (mainly because a good written expression allows you to make yourself understood, quite simply) in your life, but also on LinkedIn. If no one is safe from a fault of typing or inattention, be sure to reread yourself to avoid gross mistakes. Tip: read what you wrote aloud to better understand where commas are needed or not.

Leave your contact details

In the presentation part of your LinkedIn profile student, swipe your email address to, in case, be contacted more easily by people who want to know more about you.

Think about LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning is a learning platform and internal online courses at LinkedIn. If you can, and want to, you you can take a few courses that interest you on LinkedIn Learning. Each Course taken is displayed as a badge on your LinkedIn profile. In addition to complete your profile, this shows the Internet users who consult it that they have before them a willing, curious and invested person.

To go further: read the LinkedIn Learning article to learn all about the online course platform .

Also and in addition, subscribe to my YouTube channel to follow my LinkedIn tips .

do not forget to be active

To have a perfect profile on LinkedIn is one thing, to be active in another and the two are complementary for bear the fruits you wish to reap. Without interaction on your part with your existing network, your student LinkedIn profile is likely to end forgotten in the network, which would be a shame after all these efforts to optimize and complete it. Also, don’t forget that LinkedIn is first and foremost a network social , and that it is the resulting diversity as well as its different shares that will create opportunities. Be curious, responsive and interesting will open doors for you, that’s for sure.

Customize it link to your profile

An address of the type https://www.linkedin.com/in/firstname-name is still more professional and practical to use than a link ending with a whole series of numbers and letters. For your signatures of emails, SEO on Google or just display it on your Paper CV, personalization of your URL is recommended. To do this, he just click on your photo at the top right, then on “Preferences and confidentiality”. Then click on “Modify the public profile”. You will then land on a page schematizing your profile. At the top right is a box where you can read “Edit your custom URL”. It’s your turn !

Be on the lookout

Remember to stay on constant standby and search on your own for internship or job offers that could match you. Lay the groundwork for your future working life from now !

Professional life begins long before your first job and the end of your studies. With LinkedIn, you can now already make a reputation in your sector, learn new things in a self-taught way (and that is an excellent quality), healthy and cordial relationships with other people who share the same ambitions that you … In short, LinkedIn when you are a student, it is being able to both forge strong bonds in interactions with other people and assert its presence in a qualitative way in the targeted sector.

LinkedIn profile and summary for students: in summary

• Do not wait until the end of your studies to build your professional LinkedIn profile, because the social network is a great ally if you know how to use it correctly. Chase and aim a perfect LinkedIn profile with this free checklist !
• Pay particular attention to your presentation and do not hesitate to be original to make an impression, and to be remembered in positive terms.
• Think keywords, think keywords: THINK KEYWORDS! (I think I insisted enough?)
• Don’t forget to be active on the network! Because a good profile is good, but it is not enough to find a job … In this regard, I recommend that you follow my training to find a job on LinkedIn easily ! Because 80% of the job market is hidden, without these keys: it is more difficult.

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The graduate’s guide to creating the perfect LinkedIn profile

targetjobs editorial team

Last updated: 11 Jan 2024, 12:21

Building a strong LinkedIn profile page is the first step towards using the online network to find job opportunities (or be found for jobs) and to grow your professional network. We guide you through what you need to include and how you should approach each section.

Creating your LinkedIn profile: Headline | Photos | About section | Education | Experience | Skills, accomplishments and recommendations

More and more students are using LinkedIn, an online network for professionals, to boost their job hunt and build their network. In fact, 79% of students surveyed in the Cibyl UK Graduate Survey 2021 said that they already use LinkedIn for career-related purposes (of a total of 67,688 students surveyed). So, if you don’t already have a LinkedIn profile then you are missing out.

To find out more about how best to put together your profile and why using LinkedIn is a must for students and graduates, we spoke to Joanne Eaton, the careers team leader at the University of Hertfordshire, and Simon Katchay, ATS business manager at GTI Recruiting Solutions (a recruitment solutions organisation that is owned by the same business as targetjobs).

LinkedIn isn’t just a hosting service for your online CV – it’s a tool that you can use to build your personal brand and grow your professional network.

This is part one of our guide to LinkedIn. In part two we look at how to use LinkedIn after creating your profile: building your network and boosting your applications .

Why should students and graduates use LinkedIn?

LinkedIn isn’t just a hosting service for your online CV – it’s a tool that you can use to build your personal brand and grow your professional network. This network can be a strong source of advice and guidance, both in your job hunt and throughout your career. Increasing your profile and being active on LinkedIn will also show recruiters that you have a genuine interest in their sector.

You can also find a job through LinkedIn. Similar to the graduate and internship vacancies on targetjobs , employers advertise their job vacancies on LinkedIn. Many recruiters for employers may also headhunt candidates using LinkedIn; that is, they will contact you directly and invite you to apply.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that LinkedIn is only for people interested in corporate careers or jobs where you might wear a suit every day. Networking is helpful for most sectors and industries. ‘I think one of the biggest misconceptions is “it’s not useful for my subject”,’ explains Joanne. ‘You don’t need loads of experience to have a profile and, more and more, LinkedIn is being used by nurses and people in creative industries.’

How to create a perfect LinkedIn profile

There are many different sections to fill out when putting together, or improving, a LinkedIn profile. One key thing to remember is that it is worth completing as many sections, and including as much information, as possible. The completeness of your profile is taken into account in LinkedIn searches: profiles that are more complete are given priority in recruiters’ searches.

Your LinkedIn profile should not be tailored to a specific role at a specific employer – this is in contrast to writing CVs for job applications, where you should always tailor your CV to a specific role. The more information a recruiter has about you, the more opportunities your profile could be relevant for. ‘What we’re doing on LinkedIn is often searching for people who fit the specification of what we’re looking for, whether that’s degree, experience, location or a combination,’ explains Simon. ‘You’ve got to remember that recruiters have limited time, so they will be looking for the candidate that best matches the profile of what they’re looking for.’

Name and headline: sell yourself in a line

This section may seem pretty self-explanatory but don’t miss out on this opportunity to explain who you are. Think of it a bit like a shorter version of your bio on Twitter, Instagram or other social networks. In a line, explain your current role or where and what you are studying, what you’re interested in and what you’re hoping to find. Keep it simple; imagine you’re explaining this to a younger sibling or relative.

You can also change your LinkedIn URL (the bit that comes after ‘linkedin.com/in/…’). This may not seem like a crucial consideration, but having a more search-friendly or snappy online identity can be part of your personal brand. Just make sure it’s suitable for work.

Recruiters will use your location to narrow down their results when they’re searching for graduates to fill roles. For example, Simon told us that he has previously looked to fill roles in a specific location and so has searched for job seeking graduates in and around an area

Get the insights and skills you need to shape your career journey with Pathways. Learn why LinkedIn is more important than you think – and ensure your profile is getting you noticed and boosting your job hunt.

Profile and background photo: make a good first impression

Your profile and cover photo will likely be the first thing that people notice when they click on your profile, so it’s worth spending time making sure they give the right first impression.

There’s a fine balance to be struck with your profile photo: it should be professional-looking, but you don’t want it to look too serious. Aim for approachable, relaxed and friendly. Avoid plain white backgrounds if you can (bit too much like a passport photo), and definitely avoid holiday snaps or photos from wild nights out. The recommended size for your profile photo is 400x400 pixels and it should be smaller than 8MB.

You may associate them more with Facebook or Twitter, but LinkedIn has cover/background photos too – and it’s a chance for you to select an image that reflects your interests, passions and/or ambitions. This could be something that is sector-related, such as a photo of a project that you were involved in, a shot from your workplace or university or, even, a favourite quotation. It’s recommended for your cover photo to be 1584x396 pixels and the maximum image size is 8MB.

About: getting to know you

This is the box that will appear directly below your name and headline; it’s where you can include supporting information and evidence that will strengthen your presence on the platform.

Imagine you’re introducing yourself to a person at a party or networking event. Explain who you are, briefly mention what your current job or degree involves (such as your specialisation or the projects you are most proud of) and provide a bit about your background.

There’s space for you to attach media (such as images, videos, presentations, links to blog posts and online portfolios) and showcase the work that you have been involved in. Don’t be afraid to show off work that you’re most proud of; this is the place to put it.

Experience: showcasing your skills and achievements

Here’s where you list previous examples of your work experience. At the very least, you should include your job title, the name of the employer or organisation, the length of time you spent in each role and a brief description of your responsibilities. Remember: focus on what you have done personally (use ‘I’ rather than ‘we’). Mentioning specific details of achievements is always impressive.

As well as explaining your responsibilities and skills, recruiters will also appreciate additional specific details about positions. Simon says, ‘Give recruiters as much useful information as possible. Don’t waffle on about your day. Talk about your responsibilities, achievements and results. That’ll be what makes you stand out from other candidates with similar degrees.’

Don’t just include the jobs and work experience that are directly relevant to the sector and/or job you are interested in. Part-time roles, volunteering positions and positions of responsibility from extracurricular activities are all worth putting on your LinkedIn profile.

It’s important to contextualise each piece of experience that you include on your profile. ‘You can’t have a different LinkedIn profile for every vacancy you apply for, so you need to give context to your skills,’ explains Joanne. ‘Don’t just put a bullet point that says “customer service” under your part-time work. Explain what this customer service role involved and give a short description of what you did.’ You’ll also be able to upload media for each role, which can support and illustrate your descriptions.

One key thing to remember is that you don’t need to have a lot of experience before you put together your LinkedIn profile. Unlike a CV, you can (and should) be updating your profile over the course of your career: use it as a growing record of your working life.

Education: your academic background

The education section of your profile is broadly similar to how you’d structure the education section of your CV. You list the details of major qualifications in reverse chronological order.

We’d recommend including a good amount of detail about your degree – for example by including information about specific modules and about your dissertation (including scores). Headhunting recruiters will often search for potential candidates with specific degrees at specific institutions, so any information on top of this will help to differentiate yourself from other students and graduates.

Unlike on CVs, you’re not necessarily expected to include details of qualifications from school (such as A level, GCSE or equivalent subjects and grades). However, as long as they don’t reflect particularly poorly on you, we’d recommend including this information.

Skills and accomplishments: pick out key points

Use this section to list your key skills, proficiencies and traits. Be wary, however, of simply listing every single skill you can think of. This won’t look particularly impressive to people viewing your profile. As a general guide, think of between five and ten key skills that you think are especially worth highlighting. This might include languages you can speak, skills particularly important to the sector you’re interested in, and certifications you’ve achieved or are working towards.

Don't be shy about including something if you are only a beginner or immediate in this area. ‘Even if you’re not an expert in a skill (such as a coding language), it’s worth putting on your profile, because that might still be what employers are looking for,’ suggests Simon. He continues, ‘A while back we were headhunting for software developers for a client of ours. As they were putting all candidates through an intensive coding course all they wanted was for applicants to have a basic knowledge in any coding language, but candidates did not have to have a computer science-based degree. Essentially, let the recruiters decide whether you’re proficient enough for the role.’

Your connections on LinkedIn can ‘endorse’ specific skills (think of it like a ‘Like’ on Facebook, but one that confirms that you have a specific skill). However, according to Simon recruiters don’t pay this much attention, so don’t go out of your way to seek endorsements and don’t worry too much if your skills remain unendorsed.

Recommendations: let others sing your praises

Recruiters and professionals looking at your profile will take notice of this section. Here people you have worked with can write a few sentences advocating for you and your capabilities. This is seen as a concrete endorsement of you and your skills.

If you have connected with a colleague from a part-time job or other form of work experience, you can ‘Request a recommendation’ from them (it’ll be under the ‘More’ option on their profile page). Just make sure it’s appropriate for you to ask a recommendation from this person (don’t ask every single previous colleague and recommendations from your friends are unlikely to hold much water).

And, finally: checks and building your profile

First impressions count, so, much like with your CV or covering letters, getting another pair of eyes to look over your profile to check for any errors or to give a second opinion is recommended.

Your university’s careers service will probably offer to check profiles and give advice on how you should be using LinkedIn. ‘We always make sure, when we’re advertising general appointments, that students know that they can use those for LinkedIn. We do a lot of reviewing of profiles,’ Joanne explains. ‘We also run workshops, which are quite interactive and are opportunities for students to really look at the platform and see the good things that are on there. At larger events, such as careers fairs or employer events, we’ve been having LinkedIn clinics. These involve two things: we have a couple of careers advisers with laptops who sit down with students to look through their profiles, and we have a photographer to take professional-looking headshots.’

Don’t forget about your profile once all the sections have been completed: the best LinkedIn users will keep their profiles up to date with new experiences, accomplishments and skills. Think of your profile as a living, breathing CV. The more detailed and relevant your profile is, the more likely you are to be sought out by recruiters.

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Psychology student linkedin summary examples.

Approved by LinkedIn experts and recruiters, these Psychology Student LinkedIn summary examples will increase your profile's engagement and ensure you give people a strong first impression. Optimized for 2024's LinkedIn algorithms.

Table of contents

• Psychology Student
• Graduate Psychology Student
• Psychology Research Assistant

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Psychology Student LinkedIn Summary Example

Leading with a Personal Connection

Starting your summary with a personal note about your passion and why you chose your field can be incredibly compelling. In this case, your fascination with the human mind gives others an immediate glimpse into your motivations and dedication to the field of psychology. It's much more memorable than simply stating your major.

Showcasing Impressive Achievements

It's great that you've highlighted a significant achievement in your study. This shows you don't just learn, but apply your knowledge in practical settings. The specifics, such as the number of subjects tested and the timeline, bring credibility and showcase your ability to handle large-scale projects efficiently.

Demonstrating Real-world Application and Empathy

By mentioning your volunteer work at the mental health clinic, you're showing empathy and commitment to applying psychological principles in real-life situations. This experience further validates your commitment to the field and underscores your readiness to tackle the emotional complexities that come with it.

Combining Interests to Display Versatility

Your love for books and understanding people's emotions, combined with your leadership role in the university’s book club, paints a picture of a well-rounded individual. It shows you can take your psychology skills out of the lab and apply them in diverse settings, which can be quite appealing to potential employers or collaborators.

Clearly Articulating Contact Intentions

Ending with a clear invitation for contact shows initiative and readiness to seize opportunities. It's a great way to convert passive readers into active connections. Plus, mentioning specific opportunities you're open to (like internships or research projects) helps target your audience better.

Listing Relevant Skills

The skills listed at the end of your summary are highly relevant to your field and enhance your profile's visibility in LinkedIn search. They further solidify your qualifications and make it easier for potential employers to see how you could fit into their organizations.

Graduate Psychology Student LinkedIn Summary Example

Highlighting leadership in significant projects

By stating your leadership role in a significant research project, you showcase that you're capable of taking charge and running with complex tasks. You are not just a participant, but a driver of change. This gives potential connections a glimpse into your capabilities and the value you can bring to their team or project. Make sure to talk about what the project aims to achieve or its impact to further strengthen your narrative.

Showcasing volunteer work

When you mention your commitment to volunteering, it reflects your passion for psychology outside of the academic bubble. It shows a level of dedication and commitment to the field that goes beyond your studies. This authentic dedication can be infectious, encouraging others to reach out and connect with you. Furthermore, it demonstrates your ability to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world settings, making you a potentially valuable asset to any team.

Sharing knowledge through different platforms

Hosting a podcast is a brilliant way to position yourself as a thought leader in the field of psychology. It showcases your ability to translate complex psychological concepts into everyday language that the average listener can understand. This is a powerful competency that can open doors for you in terms of public speaking, consultations, or writing opportunities. Do not underestimate the power of having an engaging online presence!

Direct call to action

By finishing your summary with a clear call to action, you're inviting potential connections to engage with you. This shows that you're open to opportunities and collaborations. It helps to build a narrative that you are approachable and excited about new challenges and opportunities. This can increase the chances of someone reaching out to you for collaborations, discussions or potential job opportunities.

Listing relevant skills

Listing out skills that are specific to your field makes you more discoverable on LinkedIn. It's important to understand how LinkedIn's algorithm works here. When recruiters or other professionals search for specific skills, your profile is more likely to appear in their search results if those skills are listed on your profile. So, make sure to include all the skills you've mastered during your academic journey and beyond.

Psychology Research Assistant LinkedIn Summary Example

Showcase of Hands-on Experience

When it comes to LinkedIn summaries, it's the real-world experience that counts. Emphasizing on the projects and roles that you've successfully handled, like in this case, the involvement in the research project on meditation and attention span, helps to build credibility. This also gives a taste of your practical knowledge and skill set, instantly catching the eye of potential employers or collaborators.

Quantifiable Achievements

Adding numbers and quantifiable results shows the impact of your work. The mention of 500+ participants in the study not only shows the scale of the project but also indirectly speaks for the person's ability to handle large-scale, complex tasks. This adds a layer of authenticity and can greatly enhance the appeal of your profile to potential employers.

Extracurricular Interests and hobbies

Mentioning interests outside of work, like volunteering at the animal shelter, adds a personal touch and gives a glimpse into your personality. It also hints at your ability to balance different aspects of life. Additionally, by talking about using professional skills in a volunteering capacity, you're showing your passion towards your field.

Demonstration of Initiative and Passion

Your LinkedIn summary should showcase your passion for your field. Running a mental health awareness blog, as mentioned in the summary, not only shows initiative but also demonstrates a commitment to the field of psychology beyond the confines of a job. It also indicates your ability to communicate complex concepts in an easy-to-understand manner. This could make you more attractive to employers who value communication skills and initiative.

Invitation for Networking

Ending the summary with an invitation to connect and discuss potential projects shows that you're open to collaboration and proactive in seeking opportunities. This kind of open-ended invite might encourage potential employers or colleagues to reach out, thereby increasing your chances of finding new opportunities.

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Thank you for the checklist! I realized I was making so many mistakes on my resume that I've now fixed. I'm much more confident in my resume now.

PhD Student Bios

In addition to their studies, doctoral candidates are involved in many aspects of the school. Among other activities, they hold Research or Teaching Fellowships and organize speaker series, conferences, and journals.

Students generally take courses their first two years, and are engaged in research and teaching for at least two more years. After their fourth year, students may or may not remain in residency; many travel to pursue their research, either in the US or abroad.

Click here for recent PhD graduates.

Salma’s research is supported by the Agha Khan program at Harvard University, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR), and Harvard University’s Center for African Research. She holds a Master of Science degree in urban development and planning from the Bartlett, University College London and a Bachelor of Architecture from the American University in Cairo. Before starting her Ph.D. at Harvard university, she worked as an urban planner in Cairo in collaboration with several NGOs, international development organizations, governmental agencies and local municipalities.

[email protected]

Hugo Betting  is an architect and a third-year Ph.D. student. His research explores the entanglement of architecture, science and environment in history, through texts and objects in the nineteenth and twentieth-century North Atlantic.

Integrating architectural history into the framework of cultural history, his current work examines how technology bears both practical and symbolic functions in nature’s exploitation, imitation, reproduction, and “recovery”; how “nature” was used as a moral, social, racial, organizational, and formal reference in the production of the built environment; or, in other words, how nature, human representations, and human productions interact.

His work on the idea of nature’s recovery at the Crystal Palace was presented at the annual Mahindra Humanities Center Graduate Student Conference at Harvard University. His forthcoming paper on the role of natural formations at the Riverside settlement in Illinois will be presented this November at the Symposium of Urban Design History and Theory, held in Delft.

Prior to arriving at Harvard, Hugo completed a Licence’s and a Master’s Degree from Paris La Villette School of Architecture and worked for various architecture studios in Paris. In 2021 and 2022, he received the Arthur Sachs Scholarship.

William Conroy  is a PhD candidate in urban studies and planning at Harvard University. His ongoing dissertation project articulates a theorization of the role of urbanization in the reproduction of capitalist society, doing so with reference to the history of American anti-imperial thought after 1928.

William has presented his academic work at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers and at the Urban Affairs Association Conference, among many other fora. He took his PhD qualifying exams under the supervision of Neil Brenner, Katrina Forrester, and Walter Johnson, with his major exam developing a “reproductionist approach” to the historical geographies of capital, and his minor exam engaging the topic of race and the urban process in the imperial United States after 1870. His own research on those themes has appeared or is forthcoming in leading journals of urban studies, geography, and socio-spatial theory, including Antipode, Environment and Planning A, Theory, Culture & Society, and more. (For more information and publication details, please visit: https://harvard.academia.edu/WilliamConroy)

William has a BA (summa cum laude) from Northwestern University, an MPhil (with distinction) from the University of Oxford, and an AM from Harvard University, where he was named a Presidential Fellow. He is a Research Affiliate at the University of Chicago’s Urban Theory Lab. Prior to graduate school, William worked for several environmental organizations, including as a Princeton in Asia Fellow.

Yazmín M. Crespo Claudio , a Puerto Rican architect and educator, is co-founder/director of taller Creando Sin Encargos (tCSE), a Cambridge/San Juan-based collective working towards socio-spatial design for urban justice since 2012. Crespo-Claudio is a Lecturer and Ph.D. candidate in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning at Harvard University. She completed a secondary field in Film and Visual Studies and is working on a certificate in Latin American Studies. Her scholarship addresses the relationship between architecture, education, media, and territory, focusing on pedagogical experiments of architecture in Latin America and the Caribbean. She holds a Master in Design Studies in History and Theory of Architecture from Harvard GSD, a Master of Architecture in Urban Design and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, and a Bachelor’s in Environmental Design from the Universidad de Puerto Rico’s School of Architecture.

Before coming to Harvard, Crespo-Claudio was the Chair of the Department of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Interior Design and Assistant Professor at the Universidad Ana G. Méndez in Puerto Rico. She has also taught at Harvard GSD; New York Institute of Technology; Universidad Politécnica de Puerto Rico; Elisava Escola Universitària de Disseny i Enginyeria de Barcelona; Universidad de Puerto Rico; Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico where she was a Professor and Coordinator of the Bachelor of Arts in Design; and Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. Her writings have been published in, among others,  De Arquitectura, Bitácora Urbano Territorial, Arquine, Polimorfo, ACSA and UIA proceedings, in the books Aprender Arquitectura by Arquine, Repository: 49 Methods and Assignments for Writing Urban Places by COST Action CA181126, and Placemaking with Children and Youth by Louise Chawla et al (co-authored), among others.

She has presented her work at several venues including the CAA Annual Conference, LASA Conference, Docomomo International Conference, CEISAL International Conference, Jornadas de Investigación Género, Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo FADU UBA, World Congress of Architects UIA, Participatory Design Conference, ACSA International Conference , among others. Her work has been exhibited at the 13 th International Architecture Biennale São Paulo (tCSE), Participatory Design Conference Newcastle upon Tyne (tCSE), Storefront for Art and Architecture NYC (tCSE), Kirkland Gallery Cambridge, AIA Puerto Rico , Museu Marítim de Barcelona , and the curation of several art, architecture, and design exhibits. Crespo-Claudio’s work has been recognized with various awards including the  Edita Technical Chamber of Greece at the XIX Congress UIA, and as an Associate Designer at Perkins Eastman the World Architecture Award 2009,  and the  AIA NY Merit Award  for the TKTS Booth in New York.

Crespo-Claudio is the recipient of the American Association University Women (AAUW) Dissertation Fellowship 2023-24. In 2022, She was awarded the Harvard Frederick Sheldon Fellowship and the Jorge Paulo Lemann Fellowship, and the Racial, GSD Equity, and Anti-Racism Fund for Archive IN/IN: International Intersectional Feminism in 2023. Her research has been supported by the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and Harvard GSD.

Yazmín M. Crespo Claudio

Samira holds a Master of Architecture from University of Toronto and a Master of Science from University of Michigan. She joined the design discipline after five years of medical studies in Iran. Prior to joining Harvard, Samira taught at University of Miami and practiced in Toronto. Her writings have appeared in Winterthur Portfolio (The University of Chicago Press), Thresholds Journal (MIT Press), Informa , Inflection Journal , and Centre , among others. She has exhibited her work at MIT (Keller Gallery), Fashion Art Toronto, University of Texas at Austin, and Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University.

Taylor holds a Bachelor of Architectural Studies and M.Arch from the University of Waterloo and an MA in Urban Planning from Harvard University. Taylor was a lecturer at Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs (2021–23) where she has led graduate classes on urban history, planning theory, and local climate governance. She has editorial experience at Log journal, The Architectural Review, and Harvard GSD Publications. Taylor has previously received a Canada Weatherhead Doctoral Fellowship, a Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative Doctoral Fellowship, and a SSHRC Canada Doctoral Fellowship. She is currently a Graduate Student Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Phillip frequently writes about architecture, art, and design. His writing has appeared in  Harvard Design Magazine, Volume, Metropolis, The New York Times, and other publications.  Recent projects include a genealogy of “creaturely” architecture in  Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech,  edited by K. Michael Hays and Andrew Holder (Harvard University Press), and The Art of Joining: Designing the Universal Connector  (Leipzig: Spector Books), a pocketbook anthology of original research on the architect Konrad Wachsmann. He is a member of the editorial board of  Architect’s Newspaper  and editor of New York Review of Architecture.  In 2020, Phillip co-founded  a83 , a gallery and organization in Soho, New York, with a three-part mission to exhibit, publish, and promote experimental projects in architecture, art, and design.

Phillip completed his Master of Architecture degree at Princeton University, where he graduated with the certificate in Media + Modernity, and received the School of Architecture History and Theory Prize. He received a Master’s degree from Harvard University in 2019. He also holds a professional Bachelor of Architecture degree from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was awarded the Louis F Valentour Fellowship, the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation Prize for Architecture History, and the AIA Henry Adams Medal. He has practiced in numerous roles with architecture firms and organizations in the United States and Europe, including OMA/Rem Koolhaas, MOS Architects of New York, and C-Lab at Columbia University. In 2018, Phillip was a fellow of the Bauhaus Global Modernism Lab in Dessau, Germany. In 2019, he received a Graham Foundation grant to support his work on an English-language translation of Nicolas Schöffer’s 1969 urban manifesto  La ville cybernétique.

[email protected] phillipdenny.com

Hayley’s current research examines developments in early modern theatre architecture and stage design, considering such topics and themes as the ways in which architecture and architectural thinking were transformed by the dramatic arts and became increasingly tied to other modes of rhetorical address practiced on stage; cultures of secrecy and rivalry characteristic of the profession of ‘scenic designer’ and among practitioners of esoteric theatre-technological knowledge; yet undecided relations between the role and reputation of stage managers called “il corago” or impresari and military commanders responsible for overseeing dynamic theatres of war; scenographic theory and its precarious relationship to practice; aesthetic and spatial programs for auditoria; and the pan-European legacy of architectural dynasties active in theatre and set design, including the families Galliari, Quaglio, and Galli da Bibiena.

Hayley’s interest in theatre architecture began following her visit to the Teatro Goldoni in Florence, Italy, in 2015. Equally inspired by the writings and life of the theatre’s namesake, that of the Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni, Hayley was inspired to complete her master’s thesis at McGill University on the role and representation of a topic much debated in Goldoni’s creative work: Commedia dell’arte , being a form of Renaissance comic theatre with crude plots and characters like the gnocchi-loving scoundrel Punch ( Pulcinella ). While completing her degree, Hayley spent time as a Research Library Reader at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California, where she consulted copious visual materials from both the Italian Theatre Prints Collection and the Stage and Theatre Design Collection. Prior to matriculating to Harvard in 2020, Hayley completed a three-month research residency at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s Institute of Theatre and Opera in Venice, Italy.

For the 2023-24 academic year, Hayley will fulfill the role of MDes Research Tutor in the Narratives Program and will partake in a digital exhibition project with the Harvard Art Museums. The exhibition, which aims to shed light on the material culture of the Crusades, will feature over one-hundred individual objects from the Museums’ collections.

Tamer is an associate member of the Spatial Ethnography Lab, a research collaborative co-founded and led by anthropologist Vyjayanthi Rao. He is also a research member of Neil Brenner’s Urban Theory Lab at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, in which he works on the spatial and political dimensions of extractive economies and large-scale water and energy infrastructure in the restructuring of North Africa. Tamer previously worked as a research assistant in the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure, focusing on water and energy infrastructure in the US. Furthermore, reflecting his shared interests in critical geography and environmental anthropology, he was awarded the Penny White summer grant to conduct fieldwork in Egypt, investigating the infrastructural landscapes of coastal engineering works in the Nile Delta.

Tamer holds a Master in Design Studies in Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), a Master of Landscape Architecture from FH Anhalt, Germany; a Post-professional Certificate in GIS and Environment from Salford University, UK; and a Bachelor of Architecture from Faculty of Fine Arts, Egypt. Tamer has previously worked as landscape architect in Germany and Egypt, and as an environmental researcher at the Center for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage, Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

Before joining the PhD program, between 2020 and 2021, he held the position of Director of Urbanism of the Ministry of Housing of Peru, where he led the development and passing into law of the 2021 National Urban Reform. Prior to this, Jose Carlos worked as an associate and senior associate at the Lima office of Baker McKenzie law firm. He has also served as legal advisor to the World Bank and to the Metropolitan Institute of Planning of Lima.

He has worked as professor of Property Law at the Catholic University Law School and has also taught seminars on urbanism at the schools of architecture of Catholic University and the National University of Engineering in Lima, Peru.

Jose Carlos holds a Master in Urban Planning from Harvard University and is also a licensed lawyer graduated from the School of Law of Catholic University of Peru.

Morgan holds an MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies with distinction from the University of Cambridge and a bachelor’s degree in International Politics and Security Studies from Georgetown University. Formerly a journalist and editor, her work has appeared in The Nation, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Mic, Popular Mechanics, Ploughshares, and Smart Cities Dive.

Charlie holds a Master in Design Studies from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a B.A. in Art History and English from Williams College. Prior to earning his Masters degree, Charlie worked as a strategist at the New York design consultancy 2×4 before joining the GSD’s Office for Urbanization (OFU). There, he contributed to design research projects on mass transit, climate change adaptation, and new town planning. With Charles Waldheim and OFU, Charlie co-authored 50 Species-Towns , a 2022 publication that presents a speculative approach to rural urbanization in China. He also produces the GSD’s Future of the American City conversation series. Charlie lives in Somerville, MA with his wife Catherine and son Paul.

His recent publications include a paper (with Neil Brenner) on the relationship between processes of extended urbanization, neoliberal agro-industrial restructuring, and the political ecologies of emergent infectious disease; an essay on work and the labor process in the global construction industry; and a paper (with Ayan Meer) on the conceptual convergences between critical agrarian studies and urban theoretical scholarship on planetary urbanization. His broader interests include geographical political economy, political ecology, critical urban theory, state theory, and the historical geography of capitalism from the nineteenth century to the present.

Swarnabh is a Research Affiliate at the Urban Theory Lab, formerly based at the GSD, currently based in the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. His research has been supported by the Harvard GSAS Graduate Society, the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, the Weatherhead Center, and the IJURR Foundation. His work has appeared in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Dialogues in Human Geography, Urban Studies, and The Avery Review, among other publications.

Swarnabh holds a Master of Philosophy in Urban Studies (with distinction) from the University of Cambridge where he studied as a Bass Scholar and a Master of Architecture from Yale University. Before coming to Harvard, he worked for several years at Diller Scofidio + Renfro in New York City where he was involved in projects spanning art, media, and architecture.

www.swarnabhghosh.com

Hannah holds a Master of Arts with distinction in the Archaeology of Buildings from the University of York and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Williams College. Before her PhD, she was a resident fellow at the Preservation Society of Newport County, where she researched patron-architect relationships in late-19 th century America. She also previously worked as a consultant for nonprofit arts and cultural organizations across the U.S. Her dissertation research has been supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the Renaissance Society of America, the Yale Center for British Art, and the North American Conference on British Studies. She is currently the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Architecture Engineering from The University of Jordan, where she was awarded the Issa Hassan Abu Al Ragheb Award for Academic Excellence. She also holds a Master of Arts in Architectural History with distinction from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Her master’s thesis focused on the architect’s agency and the politics of knowledge in the “digital generative architecture” discourse.

She has worked as a visiting lecturer at Al-Zaytoonah University in Jordan, where she taught a class on the theories and applications of Building Information Modeling (BIM). She was also a research consultant at Studio-X Amman, run by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and the Columbia Global Centers, where her research focused on the history of urban planning in the city of Amman and the different digital technologies used in mapping the urban change and their influence on the ways the city has been represented and narrated. In 2019, Hanan participated in the Global Modernism curatorial research residency at the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau, Germany, and edited Handle with Care: Unpacking a Bulky Table, an anthology that looks at a table designed by Marcel Breuer as a case study, investigating the incorporation of everyday objects into the design canons. Hanan’s doctoral research has been supported by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The Weatherhead Center, and The Charles Babbage Institute. In 2022, she was named ACADIA (The Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture) inaugural cultural history fellow.

Photo credit: Portrait by Enrique R. Aguilar for MENTES vol. 2, 2022.

Gabriel was Assistant Curator for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2021. Past curated exhibitions include “Walls of Air” (the Brazilian Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale) and “Housing+” (the 3rd Biennial Exhibit of the MIT L. Center for Advanced Urbanism). His recent books include: The World as an Architectural Project (MIT Press, 2020); 8 Reactions for Afterwards (RioBooks, 2019); and Walls of Air: Brazilian Pavilion 2018 (Bienal de São Paulo, 2018).

Graduated from the Master of Science in Urban Design program at MIT, Gabriel has held research positions at the School of Architecture and Planning, the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism and the Senseable City Lab, and taught graduate-level seminars, workshops and studios at the same school.

For his PhD at Harvard, Gabriel is looking at the history of urbanization in the Amazon basin. His research interest suggests that the way politics and power got spatialized in that region has defined the framework through which we conceive of and relate to the Amazon, and that a new reading of it can, in turn, inform the way we understand and address broader urbanization processes as well as the responses from our design disciplines.

[email protected] gabrielkozlowski.com tomorrowanew.org

Anny has a background and strong interest in archives, knowledge infrastructures, and material history. Her professional experience includes work in special collections libraries, including Frances Loeb Library’s Special Collections and Houghton Library, where she supported their exhibitions, communications, and public programs. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked on communications and publications at Snøhetta, and has been a writer and editor at various architecture and landscape architecture firms for over 6 years. She has been an invited speaker in courses at the Syracuse University School of Architecture, Yale School of Architecture, Harvard GSD, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and has edited and been published in publications including the New York Review of Architecture , Failed Architecture , POOL , Constructs , and volume 1 . She holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Brown University.

Sunghwan earned his Master in Design Studies (MDes) degree in Energy and Environment from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2021. He received the Dean’s Merit Scholarship during his study and his master’s thesis, entitled Controlling Wind Pressure around Building by Multiangle Ventilation Louver for Higher Natural Ventilation Potential , was awarded to Daniel L. Schodek Award for Technology and Sustainability.

Before joining the Harvard community, Sunghwan double majored in Interior Architecture & Built Environment and Architecture & Architectural Engineering at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, Sunghwan worked as a construction engineer at Samsung Construction and Trading company for six years. His invaluable experiences with building an airport in Mongolia and constructing a residential complex in Seoul profoundly shaped his research ideas and motivated him to contribute to the field of architecture.

In his dissertation, Adam researches the mid-twentieth century entanglement of wartime policies, government agencies, private sector collaborations, and mass media technologies that led to the production of military “mock villages.” Constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in collaboration with architects, landscape architects, and Hollywood scenographers, mock villages were—and remain—elaborate stage sets where the US military rehearses combat operations before conducting them in actual theaters of war. His dissertation focuses on the Pacific Theater and especially the western United States where, in the 1940s, mock villages emerged as a key military technology in the war between the US and Japan. A goal of this research is to demonstrate how the invention of a novel form of architecture—the military mock village—coincided with the production of new forms of violence and destruction that persist today. In addition to the Safra Center, his project has been supported by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Graham Foundation.

Before coming to Harvard, Adam practiced for nearly a decade in several design offices including Olson Kundig Architects, Allied Works Architecture, and Snøhetta, where he was the director of post-occupancy research. His writing can be found in Thresholds , The Avery Review , and Log, among others.

Sarah holds both a Master of Architecture and a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, where the focus of her research was conflict between the collective desire to memorialize and the protective impulse to stigmatize, sanitize, or obliterate sites with traumatic or violent associations.

Prior to her enrollment at Harvard, Sarah was a public historian for the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission where she wrote about lesser-known episodes in New York City’s past: female reformers’ creation of the first purpose-built kindergarten in Brooklyn, the adaptation of Civil War-era manufactories by Abstract Expressionist artists for use as studios, and Redemption-era racism through the lens of Tin Pan Alley’s 1890s-1910s popular music businesses.

Before joining the Ph.D. program, Miranda taught advanced studio courses as a Visiting Professor of Practice at Virginia Tech’s School of Architecture. At Virginia Tech she also developed a course on social mapping and GIS with a regional focus in Appalachia, which received support and recognition from other departments at the university and won the ACSA / Temple Hoyne Buell Center’s 2023 Course Development Prize in Architecture, Climate Change, and Society.

Before teaching, she worked as an architect at RODE Architects in Boston, MA on the largest supportive housing project north of New York City, as well as flood-resilient, Passive House, and community-oriented projects. She has also worked at firms in Boston and New York specializing in affordable housing, historic preservation, and adaptive reuse.

Caroline Filice Smith is doctoral candidate in Urban Planning and the ‘22-‘23 Democracy Doctoral Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School. Their work focuses on racialized histories of urban design across the US and its empire, histories of activist planner-architects, and reparative and abolitionist models of urban design. Caroline’s dissertation project explores the emergence of “participatory planning” in the mid-twentieth century. Through a focus on federally funded—yet activist led—community action programs in the US, Caroline’s research examines how the Black Power movement, the War on Poverty, and models of community development originally designed to quell insurgency abroad, intersected to form the foundation of a now central paradigm of US urban planning practice. This work touches on issues of democratic social engineering, cold war imperialism, 20 th  century anti-racist urban uprisings, and struggles for self-determination across the US.

In addition to their dissertation, Caroline teaches and conducts research as part of the  Urban Design and the Color Line  project and has recently completed an anti-racist planning toolkit with the Highline Network and the Urban Institute ( link ), and a report for the Architectural League of NY on landscape and community-led, post-coal futures for Appalachia.  They are a Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative doctoral fellow, having previously served as an Irving Innovation Fellow, and their work has been funded by the Graham Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Warren Center for American Studies, the Canadian Center for Architecture, and the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative. Caroline holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design with Distinction from the GSD, where they were awarded both the Thesis Prize and Academic Excellence Award in Urban Design – additionally, Caroline holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech. Prior to coming to Harvard, Caroline spent five years in professional architectural practice – most of which was spent working for UNStudio in their Shanghai office, and less of which was spent practicing in Los Angeles where they were actively involved in the Occupy movement.

Prior to doctoral studies, Sam worked in urban science-policy engagement for a Sustainability Research Network supported by the US National Science Foundation and as a research associate with the global cities research team at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Professionally, he has contributed to reports commissioned by UN Environment, the World Bank, and NATO. His scholarly work has been published in  Global Environmental Change .

Sam holds master’s degrees in urban planning and Latin American studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies from Tulane University.

Eldra has presented work at conferences organized by the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, the European Architectural History Network, and the Première Université d’été de programme STARACO (STAtus, RAce, et COuleur) at the University of Nantes.

Currently, she is a lecturer and principal advisor to the MDesign Historic Preservation Program for the Department of Architecture at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Additionally, she was the Nettie Seabrooks Graduate Curatorial Intern in European Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where she assisted museum curators with an upcoming exhibition entitled “Color of Faith.” Eldra has taught courses at the GSD in Western Architectural history and theory, from the Renaissance to the present. Before coming to Harvard, Eldra was an architectural design reviewer in the District of Columbia Office of Planning. Eldra has an MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania and a BS from Morgan State University.

Angela Wheeler is a sixth-year PhD candidate and graduate associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Her dissertation examines historic neighborhood conservation in the postwar Soviet Union and its development as an urban planning tool, site of transnational exchange, and arena for local identity politics. She is broadly interested in the history of heritage conservation movements, experimental and activist approaches to heritage, and the role of preservation pedagogy in design curricula.

After working with the International Council of Monuments and Sites as a Fulbright grantee in Tbilisi and conducting HUD surveys of Hawaii public housing, she completed an MSc in Historic Preservation at Columbia University. Her thesis, Socialist in Form, National in Content , investigated official attempts to reconcile historic preservation and postmodern aesthetics with Soviet ideology in the Brezhnev era.

Angela’s recent projects include a Graham Foundation grant for “Indigenous Outsiders: Endangered Islamic Heritage in the Republic of Georgia,” an exhibition and publication documenting the wooden mosques of Georgia’s Adjaran Muslim community. Her chapter on mosques of Russia and the Caucasus appeared in Rizzoli’s Mosques: Splendors of Islam (2017) and her book, the Tbilisi volume for DOM’s Architectural Guides series (2023), offers the first comprehensive English-language guide to the city since glasnost. Angela has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on architecture and urban history at Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Ziwei holds a Master in Landscape Architecture, a Master in Design Studies in Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), and a Bachelor of Architecture from Southeast University, China. She has also experience as an urban designer for one year for Stoss Landscape Urbanism, where she participated in projects in China, the U.S., and the United Arab Emirates.

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Leveraging Your PhD: Why Employers Value Your Skills

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Guest post by Heer Joisher (Griffin GSAS Candidate in Developmental Biology) for MCS.

Harvard’s Mignone Center for Career Success recently hosted an insightful discussion spotlighting the remarkable journeys of a select group of GSAS alumni who have masterfully leveraged their Ph.D. degrees to forge unique and gratifying career paths. Their experiences not only illuminate the expansive landscape of career possibilities for graduate students but also stand as beacons of inspiration for Ph.D. students and recent graduates navigating their own professional journeys.  Here are some reflections I’ve summarized from the panel discussion on exploring non-academic career paths: the motivations, the timing, and the process.

Why? – A Multitude of Motivations

Dean Emma Dench’s opening remarks for the panel, noting that approximately 50% of Harvard PhDs become intellectual leaders outside academia, set the stage for a discussion on the motivations driving individuals to explore non-academic career paths. These motivations are as diverse as the individuals themselves, ranging from financial considerations to differing interpretations of job satisfaction and expectations.  Moreover, panelists emphasized the presence of abundant opportunities available beyond academia and the importance of gaining a comprehensive understanding of the broader professional landscape. Embracing this perspective involves stepping outside the traditional academic paradigms, challenging preconceptions about career paths dictated by one’s degree or department. Instead, it involves introspectively questioning what truly fosters personal fulfillment and utilizing one’s unique background and expertise to craft a career trajectory that aligns with individual aspirations.

When? – The Sooner, the Better

The panel collectively emphasized the importance of early exploration into non-academic career paths, highlighting the immense value in stepping beyond conventional trajectories and embracing diverse experiences. Their insight underscores that this journey isn’t solely about finding a different career path; it’s about broadening perspectives and building a vibrant professional community, irrespective of the ultimate career trajectory.   While transitioning out of academia may be smoother for some fields or labs compared to others, actively delving into learning about alternative career paths enables individuals to challenge norms and foster connections with mentors who can offer invaluable support along the way. The environment at Harvard, with its diverse peers and alumni network, facilitates this exploration and openness to new opportunities, acting as a catalyst for personal and professional growth.

How? – Navigating the Process

Drawing from their diverse career paths, the panelists offered valuable strategies and frameworks to guide individuals through the transition process. Each insight struck a chord with attendees, offering relatable anecdotes and invaluable guidance. Below is a compilation of key takeaways distilled from the discussion:

• Embrace Career Exploration and Experimentation:
• Explore diverse opportunities and pathways even if they seem unconventional or outside your comfort zone
• Recognize that your first job doesn’t have to be perfect, and that career progression often involves trying different roles and industries
• Utilize resources like alumni and LinkedIn to learn about different careers, and experiences
• Identify the transferable skills gained during your academic journey and identify your strengths. Introspect on how your strengths align with roles outside academia, consider doubling down on skills you excel in and enjoy.

• Cultivate Meaningful Professional Relationships:
• Approach networking with a mindset of curiosity and growth, fostering genuine relationships that support your career development.
• Articulate your accomplishments and expertise with confidence to bolster your credibility and draw opportunities towards you.
• Engage in informational interviews to gain valuable insights into various job responsibilities, organizational cultures, and career paths, allowing you to assess your fit within different professional contexts.
• Take a proactive approach to relationship-building by categorizing connections based on shared interests and goals. Remember, networking is a two-way street; look for opportunities to offer support, share insights, and connect others within your network.

• Invest in Your Professional Growth:
• View informational interviews, hands-on learning opportunities and internships as pivotal investments in shaping your future career path.
• Proactively seek out opportunities that foster continuous learning, cultivate enduring professional relationships, and steer your career in desired direction.
• Hone the art of articulation and effective communication to confidently convey your skills, experiences, and achievements, aligning them with the needs of different roles and organizations.
• Conquer decision paralysis by taking action: apply for open positions and initiate conversations with new connections. Embrace the interview process as an opportunity for growth and learning, gaining valuable insights along the way.

In conclusion, the panel discussion offered profound insights into navigating non-academic career paths. These key takeaways underscore the significance of charting one’s unique path with confidence and purpose in the dynamic landscape of non-academic careers.

Meet the Panelists:

• Elias Bruegmann, PhD : Head of Product Data Science at Stripe
• Victoria Tillson Evans, PhD : Founder & President of Distinctive College Consulting
• Marinna Madrid, PhD : Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Cellino
• Jessica Paige, PhD : Social Scientist at RAND
• Paul Schwerda, PhD : Investment Manager at Baillie Gifford
• Roger Vargas, PhD : Computational Scientist at Moderna

Quotes from Attendees:

“As an upper-level PhD student, the seminar provided valuable information and insights on careers outside of academia. It was great to hear from a diversity of people with different perspectives and who followed various career paths.” – Stephan Foianini, G5, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University

• What Can You Be with a PhD
• Beyond the Professoriate