Around February or March, I had no idea what I was going to do for work after I graduated. I had zero jobs lined up. I abruptly had to fly back home for the spring quarter due to Covid-19. At home, I nonstop applied to jobs but came up empty-handed. Most of the jobs were on hold, not hiring, or letting go of employees.
The lightbulb went off when I attended Jonathan Javier from Wonsulting’s webinar. A spark went off when I realized that he was able to achieve all those professional accomplishments without applying to jobs. From that webinar, I applied some of the tactics that he shared and created my first LinkedIn post.
I connected with professionals nonstop, and a few months later in June, I secured my first chat with a Google recruiter. Back in March I never would’ve thought I could achieve this; I would’ve been too scared. It started when I commented on the Google recruiter’s webinar, then I sent her a private message on LinkedIn asking for a chat, we proceeded to talk for around an hour and she liked my personality enough to refer me to a position at Google. This was amazing because I didn’t even have a job to show forth at the time.
All that started from a comment on LinkedIn, then a private message, then a chat, then a Google referral.
From April to June, I was just on LinkedIn all the time. Even my friends saw a huge change in me with my confidence. They know that I’m usually very quiet and shy, but within 6 months, a whole flower just bloomed all due to LinkedIn.
During my time on LinkedIn, I made the most out of any opportunity I could get. Most people are nice and will want to give you the time of day. The more you talk with people, whether it’s students, professionals, people in mid-to-late careers, the better it gets. It’s all about the first step, but it’s definitely the most important step.
The piece of advice I would leave you when you’re leveraging LinkedIn is just to “suck it up.” I know it sounds forward, but if you don’t try out those opportunities, you will live with regrets. You have to put yourself out there and gain those experiences.
