If you’re serious about pursuing professional development and leadership opportunities, you should definitely be on LinkedIn.
More than 10 million Australians have a LinkedIn profile, and it’s the place to be for professional conversations, job-searching, industry news and networking.
Here’s a quick cheat sheet to help you polish your profile to perfection!
1. Create a profile
Set up your account
Visit
linkedin.com on your computer or download the LinkedIn app on your device to get started.
Enter your details and don’t forget to add a profile photo. We recommend a headshot (from your shoulders-up) in professional work attire, with good lighting and an uncluttered background. Save the soft focus, eighties-style photos for your Flashback Friday posts on Instagram and stick with an authentic, current photo on LinkedIn. Remember, first impressions count!
You can also add a cover image for your profile. Consider something suitable for your job or subject areas, or perhaps a photo of your classroom or at work. You might even like to search image sites for freely usable pictures. As always, make sure you use an image that is not in copyright. Plus, it’s usually best not to pick a photo that includes other people (especially students), particularly if you don’t have their consent to publish the image on your personal LinkedIn profile.
Work experience and skills
Add your work experience, including your current and previous jobs. You can detail your responsibilities in each position, but keep it fairly brief. Use a critical eye when adding your past jobs and think about whether they are relevant to your current position and future career goals (so it might be time to retire your high school job at Baskin Robbins from your resume). If you’re already working for us, make sure you add the department as your current employer. Type 'Queensland Department of Education' and it will pop up in the drop-down list.
You can also specify your hard and soft skills.
Customise your headline
LinkedIn will use your current job in your profile headline by default, but we recommend you customise it to something more specific about you personally, your skills or your career aspirations. It’s the first thing that potential employers will see, so don’t miss the opportunity to stand out from the crowd! For example:
Jennifer Honey
Preservice secondary teacher graduating Dec 2020 | Former virologist at CSIRO
John Keating
Trusted educator with over ten years’ classroom experience | Open to leadership opportunities
Work examples
You can upload videos, images or presentations that showcase your skills or special work projects.
Other information
You can also add your education and volunteering experience to your profile, plus any other accreditations or skills you have that might be relevant to your teaching career.
Privacy settings
Note that your profile will be open to the public by default, meaning that anybody who searches for you on Google will be able to see all of the information you post on your profile page, even if they don't have a LinkedIn account. Consider adjusting your privacy settings to control who is allowed to see what information, and who can connect with you and message you.
2. Interact
Connect with colleagues
Start by finding colleagues (present and past) to connect with. Type their names in the search bar up the top, or check your suggested connections or known contacts. A quick tip: by default, when you view other people's profiles, they'll get a notification including your name and current position and organisation. You can change this in your privacy settings.
Grow your network
You can also find schools, organisations and influencers to follow to keep up to date with news, jobs, information and events.
Plus, join groups to show enthusiasm and participation in your field. LinkedIn has steadily been gaining popularity as user numbers grow, and it's a place where a lot of inspirational chatter is happening.
Comment
Once you've started to build your network, you can skim the news feed for posts from people in your network and organisations you follow. Go ahead and comment on things that are interesting or applicable to you as a professional, particularly if you are a subject matter expert. When commenting, remember to be respectful, polite and informed.
Publishing updates
You can also publish your own updates from the home page. This might be information about a recent work achievement, your insights about a development in educational practice, or you could share a topical and pertinent news article.
Search for jobs
We publish job spotlights regularly on the
Queensland Department of Education LinkedIn page, but you can also use LinkedIn's 'Jobs' portal to search for other opportunities.
3. Things to remember
Responsibility on social media
If you already work for the department, you should always remember that anything posted on social media sites must abide by the
Code of Conduct for the Queensland public service, the Queensland Government's
Personal use of social media guideline and relevant Department of Education policies (including the
Social media policy), whether or not the page is private or personal and whether or not it's done during work hours.
It's also wise to think twice about the things you post, particularly things that are available publicly to potential employers. Does the comment reflect well on you? Once you've posted something on social media, it's pretty difficult to take it back, so always exercise a degree of caution.
Keep your profile current
If you get a new job or make another change, make sure you update your profile accordingly. Same goes for profile pictures!
Need more help?
LinkedIn has heaps of helpful advice on creating a great profile. Start with
this webcast and then check out
this answer page for more information.
Follow the
Queensland Department of Education on LinkedIn for the latest news, events and jobs from us, plus more great articles like this one.