Instructor’s Guide: Welcome Talent Canada

Thank you for leading the “Welcome Talent Canada” workshop! This workshop is focused on educating refugee job-seekers on how LinkedIn.com can be a powerful tool to source and connect to opportunities in Canada. Please use this “Instructor’s Guide” in tandem with the “Welcome Talent Canada” PowerPoint presentation. The sections of this “Guide” correspond with each slide in the presentation.

Today’s agenda Hello everyone, and welcome! Today we’re going to answer the questions: What is LinkedIn? How can LinkedIn help you in your job search? You’re going to learn how to create a LinkedIn profile, build your professional network, and apply for jobs via LinkedIn.

Today’s objective Our goal today is for you to: ● Understand how LinkedIn can help you build your network in Canada ● Create a LinkedIn profile ● Feel confident in your ability to leverage LinkedIn in your job search

LinkedIn is the social media platform for your professional self Our mission is simple: To connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful. When you join LinkedIn, you get access to people, jobs, news, updates, and insights that help you be great at what you do. LinkedIn is a social media platform – like Facebook or Twitter – that connects you to your professional network. There are currently more than 450 million LinkedIn members, and the network is growing by 2 members per second. A professional network differs from a social network in that you use it to represent your professional self and career aspirations, rather than your social or personal life. I might not connect with my manager

on Facebook, but I would definitely connect with him or her on LinkedIn, because he or she is a part of my professional network.

Our vision: create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce With LinkedIn, you can connect to opportunities. In fact, LinkedIn’s vision as a company is to connect each and every person in this room, as well as every member of the global workforce, to opportunities. But what do we mean by that?

What is LinkedIn? On LinkedIn, you create a personal profile that displays your work experience, education, skills, and interests. Once you’ve created a profile, you can connect with your friends, family, and professional colleagues on LinkedIn. These connections build up your personal LinkedIn network. Organizations, such as companies and nonprofits, use LinkedIn to post jobs and find qualified candidates with the exact skills they need. With a LinkedIn profile, you can apply directly to jobs posted on LinkedIn. Additionally, you can see if anyone in your network works at, or is connected to someone who works at, the organizations you’re interested in working for. By leveraging these connections, you can build relationships that can help connect you to job opportunities.

The Economic Graph LinkedIn’s long-term vision is to create a digital mapping of the global economy, called The Economic Graph. ● It will include a profile for every one of the 3 billion members of the global workforce,

enabling them to represent their professional identity and subsequently find and realize their most valuable opportunities.

● It will include a profile for every company in the world, who you know at those companies up to three degrees to help you get your foot in the door, and the product and services those companies offer to enable you to be more productive and successful.

● It will digitally represent every job offered by those companies, full-time, temporary and volunteer, and every skill required to obtain those opportunities.

● It will include a digital presence for every school in the world that can help members obtain those skills. And it will overlay the professionally relevant knowledge of every one of those individuals, companies, and universities to the extent that they want to publicly share it.

Already, LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful tool for you to find and connect with job opportunities. You can search for and find companies in Toronto that are hiring, and see if you know anyone who works there and can provide a warm recommendation for you. You can see exactly what skills are needed for these jobs, and you can find resources to help you obtain the skills you need.

The good news: you already have the tools you need to build a great career in Canada! You may not even realize it yet, but you already have the ingredients for success. You have specific skills you can bring to the table, you have a growing network of people you know who can vouch for you and support you in finding a career, and you have interests that can be translated into a job. There are jobs you may not even realize exist yet. LinkedIn helps you translate these ingredients of a network, skills, and information into a specific job and career to help you create the life you want to live. There are so many companies and people in Canada who want to help you build a life here, and LinkedIn can help you find and connect with them.

Let’s create a LinkedIn profile

Get started at www.linkedin.com Let’s get started! I’m going to walk you through the registration process to create a LinkedIn profile. Go to “www.linkedin.com” and start by entering your first and last name, your email address, and creating a password.

Add your new country and postal code

Next, put in your location! The Toronto postal code is M4C 1B5.

Add your most recent job experience Now, LinkedIn asks you to put in your current school if you’re a student, or your current job title if you aren’t a student. For this section, just put your most recent job title and company name. Don’t worry - you will be able to edit this later.

Choose your adventure: find a job! Next, select the option that you’re using LinkedIn to find a job. Import your email contacts to find people you know. Finally, you have the option to import your email address book, which allows you to find any of your email connections who are already on LinkedIn. If you don’t want to import your email address book right now, you can just click the “Skip” button. After this step, you will need to confirm your email address via a verification code sent to your email address.

LinkedIn homepage {1/2} You’ve create an account! You should now see the LinkedIn homepage.

LinkedIn homepage {2/2} If you click on your name or the blank profile picture, you will be taken to your profile.

Step 1: Build your LinkedIn profile

Time to build your profile! Time to build your profile! This blank profile is what you should see now. We’re going to walk through each of these steps, to help you create a great profile that is reflective of your experiences, skills, education, interests, and aspirations.

Add a professional photo Adding a profile photo is key – profiles with a photo get 14x more views than a profile without a photo. Adding a photo helps humanize your profile and makes you more approachable. Make sure you are smiling in your picture! A smiling face on your profile goes a long way toward making a great first impression with potential Canadian employers. You don’t have to enlist the help of a professional photographer – just ensure you’re dressed professionally and alone in the shot and you can even take a photo with the help of a colleague. But today, we’re lucky enough to have a photographer onsite! I strongly encourage you to stop by her station to get your picture taken after the session, if you haven’t already.

Write an attention-grabbing headline Your headline is the phrase that appears next to your name throughout LinkedIn. If you have a job, it’s common to use your job title and company as your headline. However, it’s even more effective to use the headline to show your value and passion in one quick line. What do you do, or what do you want to do? How do you characterize yourself professionally? The examples here are all different, but are each strong examples of how LinkedIn members can indicate their passions and interests to their extended networks.

Your LinkedIn profile is not a resume As we move into the experience sections, I want to be sure and explain how LinkedIn differs from a traditional resume or CV. It’s much more holistic, and allows you to tell your personal story. It’s not just a series of bullet points!

Add relevant sections to display your experiences You will see a variety of different sections you can add to your profile. Some of the most important sections are Summary, Experience, and Education. However, you can go beyond that to add your Language skills, Projects you’ve worked on, your Volunteering experience, any Organizations you’re a member of, and much more. Companies find qualified candidates for their open jobs by searching for keywords on LinkedIn. For that reason, it’s important to add descriptions to each section. If you don’t have a relevant keyword on your profile, you won’t come up in a search for that keyword. You can maximize your odds of finding a job on LinkedIn by including as much detail as possible.

Write a compelling summary Next, take a minute to think about your Summary. Your Summary sits at the top of your LinkedIn profile, and is your chance to briefly tell your story. A good formula is to reference what you’ve done in the past and what you’re doing now, but ultimately to focus on your future potential and aspirations. See this example: “I am passionate about hospitality and making others feel welcome. In Syria, I ran a successful hotel that welcomed in visitors from all over the globe. Today, I am pursuing opportunities in the Toronto area that will allow me to leverage my extensive experience in the hotel and hospitality industry. Please reach out if you know of any opportunities!” Again, adding a summary of 40 words or more makes your profile more likely to turn up in a future employer’s search. A good tip is to ensure your summary includes keywords featured in desirable job descriptions for your field. Describe your experience and tell the world why you work in your chosen career. Avoid buzzwords (examples: strategic, team player, creative) and focus on your career accomplishments. If you feel uncomfortable sharing your accomplishments so directly, know that in Canada this is completely normal and, indeed, important in order to demonstrate your qualifications.

Detail your experience Here’s the meat of your LinkedIn profile: your past work experience.

Click the “Add Position” button to add additional roles. Be sure to include all past jobs, including part-time jobs and professional work experience. Include the Company name, your Job Title, and the location of the role. Add the time period that you worked there. Finally add a description of what you did in that role. What did you accomplish in each role? What did you learn? Remember, this is beyond a simple resume: this is an opportunity to tell your story of career growth.

Detail your education If you attended high school or university, you can add that in the Education section. Adding your education is a great way not only to show your qualifications, but also gives you an opportunity to connect with other alumni from your school who may in the Toronto area. There are multiple fields here, but the key ones to fill out are the School name, the dates attended, and the degree or field of study if relevant.

Add skills and get endorsed Finally, add skills! What are your areas of expertise? Skills can include anything from public speaking, to customer service, to childcare, to business development. Take some time to think about what kinds of skills you have. Just click “edit” and start adding! Adding skills and expertise makes it easy for your connections to endorse you for your knowledge and strengths, and helps you show up in relevant searches for companies looking for someone with your skills. Be sure to endorse the skills and expertise of your connections as well – it will encourage them to do the same for you.

Ask for recommendations that add credibility and flavor And last but certainly not least in this section: Ask for recommendations.

There are few things that can help your job search as much as someone vouching for who you are and why you should be hired. Ask some of your connections – like former coworkers and clients – to write recommendations of your work. Getting a strong recommendation usually requires asking for one, so don’t be afraid to make a delicate request. Reassure someone that these can be short paragraphs, and can take less than 10 or 15 minutes.

Complete as many sections as you can! We covered some of the most important sections today, but be sure to go back and see if there’s anything else you can add! The more information you have on your LinkedIn profile, the more accurate your suggested jobs will be.

Step 2: Build your network on LinkedIn

You’ve created your LinkedIn profile. Now we’re going to talk about how to use it to build your network. There are many different types of people on LinkedIn, which means that you can get connected to many different types of opportunities on the site.

Your LinkedIn “network” Opportunities don’t appear out of nowhere – they are connected to people. The best way to meet new people is via the people you already know. Think back to when you got your very first job. Did you get it via someone who was a family member or friend? It’s always easier to get a job somewhere when you know someone who works there and can help you prepare. All kinds of people are on LinkedIn, from all different ages and backgrounds. Even if you don’t think of your current network as being able to help you professionally in Canada, I promise it’s easy to build it and leverage it to connect to job opportunities!

Build your network on LinkedIn Your network is basically the people you know in life; in order for them to be helpful on LinkedIn, you need to connect with them! Start off by searching for the people you already know

in real life, under the My Network tab. If you click “Connections” it will show you all your current connections. “Add Contacts” will allow you to import your address book from your email address. “People You May Know” will make suggestions based on your current connections and work experience. “Find Alumni” will help you find other graduates of your university.

How to connect with someone you’ve just met The easiest way to add someone to your network is from their LinkedIn profile. Click the “Connect” button, and you’ll be taken the invitation page. Always include a personal note instead of the default text! If you’re adding someone who you’ve just met once, it may be helpful to include where you met them. Generally, it’s best to only connect with people who you actually know. However, an exception might be if you are reaching out to someone with something in common with you, such as if they went to the same university or are also new to Canada and have recently found a job in an industry you’re interested in. When reaching out to someone who you don’t already know, be sure to write a note explaining why you’d like to connect.

Join Groups to build your network Groups are communities within LinkedIn that allow you to find and connect with people and build your network. You can find and join LinkedIn groups by searching for groups from the Search field at the top of your homepage. There are multiple groups on LinkedIn for each interest, organization, or affiliation. Find groups based on your industry or the industries you are interested in getting into.

Join the Welcome Talent Canada Group We’ve created a group for everyone here today, so that we can all stay in touch! Please search for “Welcome Talent Canada” and ask to join the Group. This makes it easier for us all to find and connect with each other.

Step 3: Apply for jobs using LinkedIn Alright, so you’ve made your LinkedIn profile and added connections. Now you’re ready to start finding and applying to jobs on LinkedIn.

Finding jobs on LinkedIn LinkedIn aggregates jobs from all over the internet, so it’s a very comprehensive database of open jobs. Click on the “Jobs” tab (circled) to find your personalized Jobs portal, showing suggestions of jobs based on the experiences you’ve listed on your profile. Then click on “Set up your jobs preferences” or the “Preferences” tab to set preferences for the kinds of jobs you’re interested in.

Setting up your job preferences Under the “Preferences” tab, select your ideal location (Toronto!), the range of your experience, and the industries you’re interested in working in. Feel free to a variety of different industries! Once you save your preferences, they will be factored into what jobs are suggested to you.

See jobs based on your experience and your preferences

If you click back to the “Discover” tab, you will now see a variety of different jobs in the Toronto area that might be a good fit. Click on them to see more information.

Apply to jobs with your LinkedIn profile If you find a job you’re interested in, it’s easy to apply! Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date, and then just click the “Apply” button. Add your contact information. If you want to attach your resume, you can also do that here. Then hit “Send application” and you’re all set! If you click back to the “My jobs” tab, you will be able to track the jobs you’ve applied to.

You’re ready to use LinkedIn! And don’t worry, we will be sending out a checklist of all the items we covered here today! Profile and job search checklist here: https://content.linkedin.com/content/dam/premium/jobsearch/PDFAssets/Job_Search_Checklist.pdf

Checking in Let’s review our objectives for today! Do you… Understand how LinkedIn can help you build your network in Canada? Know how to create your LinkedIn profile? Feel confident in your ability to leverage LinkedIn in your job search? Please let me know if you have any questions now – I’m happy to help, and want to make sure you have the knowledge and skills you need to get started using LinkedIn for your job search.