Clueless About What to Do After Graduation? This New App Might Help
“At Social Media High, Facebook is the all-star quarterback, Twitter is the school paper’s editor in chief and Snapchat is the mysterious, Harley-riding transfer student.”
“That makes LinkedIn the nerd who skips prom for the mathlympics. Yet, like in every great John Hughes movie, the underdog actually belongs in the in-crowd.”
That’s Joanna Stern’s brilliant introduction in her recent Wall Street Journal article encouraging professional adults to use LinkedIn more.
And with the launch of the LinkedIn Students app, the same advice may apply to college students, as well.
“Using insights from LinkedIn’s database of over 400 million professionals, the brand new app helps you discover jobs that are a best fit for graduates with your major, companies that tend to hire from your school and the careers paths of recent alumni with similar degrees,” explains Ada Yu in a company blog post.
Are you panicking daily, wondering, “What career is right for me?” You might want to try this app.
What is LinkedIn Students?
“Think of it as your personal job exploration guide, providing tailored jobs related recommendations [sic] based on real data from the career paths of hundreds of millions of successful professionals,” Yu continues.
Because the job search process can often seem overwhelming, LinkedIn designed its app to be used in manageable, daily chunks.
I already have an awesome job (you can work at The Penny Hoarder, too!), but I still decided to give it a spin.
What Using the New LinkedIn App is Like
If you already have a LinkedIn profile, signing up is easy: Just confirm your university, major and expected graduation date.
The interface then presents you with a set of five screens — each with a different piece of career advice on it — which you have to swipe through. (How millennial of you, LinkedIn!)
The first has a relevant career, complete with a brief description, median salary and several alumni in the role.
It’s followed by a recommended LinkedIn blog post, a company often recruiting at your school, a selection of alumni with your major (so you can presumably examine their career paths), as well as a specific job opening you might want to consider.
To me, it seemed like swiping through the set of five screens is supposed to be your daily career exercise.
Some of the ideas were repetitive, and not all of the information was relevant, but it did seem like a painless way for college students to kickstart their career searches.
And like LinkedIn says, it’s a smart way to “chip away at your job search checklist in any of your in-between moments — walking between classes, waiting in line at the coffee shop or taking a study break.”
You’re already on your phone all the time anyway — you might as well give your career a boost while you’re at it!
Your Turn: Will you download the LinkedIn Students app?
Susan Shain is a freelance writer and digital nomad. She covers travel, food and personal finance (basically, how to save money so you can travel more and eat more). Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.
