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The Ivey Career Management Podcast shares practical career advice, alumni insights, and expert perspectives to help Ivey students and graduates navigate their careers with confidence.
[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]
Welcome to the Career Management Podcast, where we bring you stories and strategies from students,
special guests and the Career Management team. As we get set up in the studio,
make yourself comfortable and let's get started.
On today's episode, we're talking with first year HBA student Maya about her experience building presence, community, and content on LinkedIn.
There are about 900 million professionals on LinkedIn connecting learning from each other and applying to jobs.
And in recent years, we know that there has been a 60% increase in content creation,
with 45% of people engaging and reading that content being managers, CEOs, and VP's of companies.
So love it or hate it, LinkedIn is one tool you want to know about,
and so we turn to Maya. Maya, would you like to introduce yourself? Yeah.
Uh, my name is Maya. I am, like mentioned, a current HBA1 student.
Um, and I was in computer science prior to joining the Ivey
HBA and I have been posting on LinkedIn since around when I was in the 11th grade, though much more consistently this past year.
Okay. Thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate you taking the time to talk about a topic that is, again, love or hate for some students.
Um, a lot of students are hesitant to use LinkedIn.
What do you think keeps most people from engaging?
I think a lot of what keeps people from engaging with LinkedIn is kind of dual pronged.
The first being somewhat fear of being perceived, um, among their professional network.
There's a lot of worry about, um,
missteps or writing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing because you are putting yourself in front of an audience for the first time,
which is very normal and sometimes more daunting on LinkedIn because it's a professionally focused platform.
And then I think that the second thing is also, um, concerns about like having nothing to say, which I think is something that, um,
people that become more connected with the platform begin to feel, at a certain point,
a little bit of an insecurity that they don't know what kind of content to post,
and I think that that is generally something that is very easy to overcome
once you recognize the fact that you have something important to say and begin feeling that self-confidence
to post. And perhaps doing a little bit of reflection or getting to know what you want to say,
but it does take time, I'm hearing. Mhm. OK, alright,
and for those who are unfamiliar with your content, how have you been using LinkedIn for your recruitment or professional journey?
Yeah. Um, I think my approach to LinkedIn is very much as a social media tool.
Um, I post a lot about what I'm working on.
I am someone who pursues a lot of personal projects in their own time, such as I do app development, and I founded my own startup,
so I post a lot of progress updates on the kind of things that I'm doing,
including just ones that are associated with even my part time work or internships.
Um, and then a lot of the other things that I post are sometimes opportunity drops related to organizations that I trust or I'm affiliated with,
and, um, largely, I would say some personal advice or things that I've written that I think a larger audience could benefit from.
Okay, so you're not just posting on LinkedIn for prospective employers, it sounds like your audience is much larger than that.
Yeah, I think that this is my favorite approach to LinkedIn because, um,
when you're posting just for professionals, sometimes it can feel restricting or like you're posturing,
um, but when you're posting just because you want to show off, "hey, this is what I'm working on,"
or try to connect with people with potentially similar interests or even, "hey, this is where I want to be,"
um, asking for help, I think is all really, really great to establish authenticity on LinkedIn and make it really feel like your own.
Um, and, you know, knowing the barriers to getting into LinkedIn,
finding that comfort and voice and kind of building your your own kind of platform, how did you know that you were successful?
What was your metric for that? Um, initially I didn't have a huge metric for success.
I just started posting because it was something that I was afraid of, so I wanted to try it.
Um, I think my metric beyond that has started to become, um, firstly,
like a little bit of a numbers game as you continue, like, "how many people can I reach?"
But before all of that, it was largely and still is,
um, how can I, um, present myself and what I have to offer to people and just be someone who is generally helpful?
"How can I connect with others?" because I think at its heart, like that's what LinkedIn is meant for.
Um, and how can I inspire others to pursue something that maybe I've struggled with?
Like, for example, I post a lot about community building and finding my own community because I,
I do work at Western related to developing entrepreneurial communities.
Um, so I like to post a little bit of community building advice, um, or even give people the opportunity to connect with me about topics like that,
because I've been someone who hasn't felt like they had a community in the past.
Um. So I'm going to pick up on two things you said there.
One. You actually weren't that comfortable with LinkedIn or wasn't such a fan, and that was part of what got you started;
you wanted to try something that maybe felt a little less familiar or less comfortable.
Um, what was it that pushed you to do that, or are you just someone who normally likes a challenge like that,
or was this like a bet that just you were so successful at? Um, yeah, I think that one I was definitely uncomfortable on LinkedIn initially.
It's a scary platform to be on for the first time, because it's like you're seeing everyone's kind of roadmap over the course of a long,
long time, and you're trying to almost sometimes compare that instantly, which is a habit you have to work your way out of.
But, um, what inspired me to actually start posting is kind of like this is a bit niche, but the "Build it,
Ship it" kind of movement on, um, more tech focused domains and even on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter,
where, um, there was a lot of people that advocated for the benefits of posting your progress on things that you care about on social media,
and it was great to see the actual tangible benefits of other people posting progress updates or things that they worked on,
or even jobs that they secured. Um, and anything that was like their sign of progress or success because you got to hype other people up for that,
and you got to receive a sense of kind of satisfaction and other people pushing you along,
as well as people were getting connected to amazing opportunities just for showing off:
"Hey, this is the kind of stuff that I care about or work on or want to work on."
So I think that is kind of what pushed me to post and definitely a, like, approach that I very, very much stand by.
OK, and that brings me to my second follow up of that is you mentioned that piece of people being hesitant about,
you know, posturing or feeling transactional or bragging.
That's something the coaching team hears a lot, but I'm hearing in your response, you know, one way to get around that is, "no,
it's-- it's about sharing what you're up to", things that you care about, not necessarily to get a job or to,
you know, target someone in particular, but by sharing what you're doing and what you enjoy,
people notice that and you either build a connection or people link you opportunities.
Am I getting that right? Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of serendipity that exists on platforms like LinkedIn,
where there is a great possibility that people will pick up on what you're working on and what you're showing off.
So I think because of that, it's really,
really important to separate your intentions and what you think you can get out of posting with the act of posting itself.
Um, I think that it's important to stay really authentic and vulnerable and just genuine when you post,
um, rather than posting for maybe a specific objective.
LinkedIn should be the kind of place that you post on "just because"
because, um, I think that posts like that ring really clear in terms of using your voice and showing off what you actually care about,
rather than it being for a specific purpose.
And sometimes that purpose, like unintended consequence of this post that you really want to happen often does happen and is more likely to,
um, maybe get views or even find its way to the right people if you treat it like "this is a reflection of me".
OK, and on that note, um, what have been some of the benefits from your presence and work on LinkedIn?
Yeah. Um, whether you were aiming for those benefits or not.
Yeah. I think there's been actually a lot of things.
Um, the first is definitely the amount of people that I've been able to help in their career journey.
Um, there was a point where I was doing, um, like several coffee chats a day,
and it was all because people were seeing what I was up to on platforms like LinkedIn and reaching out to me with asks for help,
um, and ways that they can further themselves. So it felt really good to have an opportunity to give back through something like LinkedIn.
Um, I also think that it's given me a really, really wonderful exposure on a lot of the things that I work on.
Um, like I mentioned before, I code a lot of like, computer science related projects,
I make a lot of blog posts as well,
and then I also, um, love to do community building work and, um, even work on startups as well.
So I think that LinkedIn has been wonderful for shining a light on these things of mine and, um,
getting more critical feedback on my blog posts, getting more users on my apps, getting more um, members attending my co-working sessions.
Um, it's been able to give me all of that, which has been so, so awesome.
And then, um, I would say the last like couple unintended consequences I had is actually... LinkedIn and also Twitter,
which I'm active on, have been really good at connecting me to jobs, um, ones that I didn't even know were out there.
I had two people actually, over the past year reach out to me to work with them part time or full time,
and I'm actually working one of those jobs right now. So having these opportunities just come my way because people are seeing me online,
um, has been really, really amazing. OK, and any final thoughts for students, whether they're already on LinkedIn,
cautiously making the first few steps, or still just thinking this might be something they want to try?
Um, I think that LinkedIn does not need to be as restrictive or as "thought heavy" of a platform that people make it out to be.
Um, I like to view LinkedIn as a space where you can post anything that you're working on or anything that you care about or think about,
or even things that you want to learn about,
and I think that viewing tools like LinkedIn or even other social media platforms in that way is very freeing,
because you get to express yourself as you would normally, and people really resonate with that.
So just making sure to not let any of the professionalism behind LinkedIn,
um, prevent you from wanting to engage with the platform is super important.
And lastly, I think that it is really, really important to consistently share the things that you think about or care about because, um,
that reach is not only an unintended accountability check with yourself,
but it is also a gateway to the rest of the world and to getting support for the things that you already care about.
OK, fantastic. Maya, thank you so much for walking us through your journey, the highs and lows of it,
and sharing a little bit more about, uh, how other students can be using this tool.
Thank you so much. Yeah, no problem.