As part of the Professional Practice Module, I have completed the Certificate in Career Thinking that has been crafted by York St John University.
The certificate was divided into six key themes; Career Options, Self-Discovery, Finding Opportunities, Securing the Job, Maximising Your Network and What’s Next?. Each section focused on a central topic of career development, and acted as a guide to allow me to understand my options after university.
Whilst each topic and activity were all very relevant to career development, I found the ‘Maximising Your Network’ sub-theme particularly interesting. I found this especially relevant as it focussed on expanding your own professional network and utilising platforms such as LinkedIn to do so.
The podcast titled ‘Do I really need a LinkedIn Profile?’ (found here: https://anchor.fm/ask-launchpad/episodes/Ask-LaunchPad—Ep–10-Do-I-really-need-a-LinkedIn-profile-e40t82/a-aeu01i ) resonated with me. A member of the York St John University’s Career Team held a session with May King Tsang – a live content producer and founder of MayKing Tea. During this session, they discussed how LinkedIn can be utilised in order to build a professional profile for yourself and make connections to people who already work in your interested industry.
May King Tsang offered some amazing insights into the world of LinkedIn and provided some hints and tips on how to approach professionals within your interested industry. I felt so inspired by May King Tsang that I connected with her via LinkedIn and we discussed how to use LinkedIn effectively and she offered to answer any questions I had about her job as a live content creator.
Connecting with May King Tsang brought traction to my LinkedIn page, and when she posted about our conversation, over 700 people viewed my profile. Below is the post she crafted about our conversation.
It was great to discuss how to maximise my network with a professional such as May King Tsang, and without completing the Certificate in Career Thinking, I would not have been able to make such a valuable connection.
Hints and Tips: Don’t be afraid to maximise your LinkedIn network, you never know what opportunities may arise from striking up a conversation with a professional in your chosen sector.
Megan Curbishley.
