Throughout your academic career, you might hear people talking about keeping a resume, CV (Curriculum Vitae), or other professional documents to show your skills, education, and work experience to future employers. You might think this is too far away for you to take seriously. You might read this as a high school or college freshman. Here is the thing: you will always need some resume-related document to obtain employment, even while in college. You might even decide you want a job while in college. A solution to organizing your experiences for a resume is to get a LinkedIn account. LinkedIn is a free and easy-to-navigate website. There are plenty of opportunities on the website to get your career and your resume a jump start.

With LinkedIn, you can create an account through the mobile app or the website. Once you have an account, you can set up your profile for employers and organizations to search. There are many different sections you can add your personal information. You can add your education, where you go to college, employment history, organizations you are a member of, courses you have taken, projects you worked on, certifications, skills you may possess, volunteering experiences, publications, and awards. You can add any document you want, like your resume or CV. Adding all of your information to your profile makes it easy for people to see what qualifications you possess and what makes you stand out as a candidate.

Likely through your university or other means, you may have access to LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn Learning contains many courses for you to learn and get certificates. For example, there are multiple courses on programming languages as well as editing for videos. These courses can be helpful for you to learn skills that your degree may not cover. Sure, you can take extra courses in college to learn additional skills, but do you have the time or the money to do that? If you only learn skills for your degree, you will not stand out amongst your peers in the same field. All of you will have the same abilities as known by your degree. These courses will likely take you just a few hours, and then you can upload your certification to your LinkedIn profile.

All of this might seem out of reach. You might ask yourself, "Why am I doing this anyway?" A cool thing about LinkedIn is that you can find jobs, many of which are remote. Remote work is a great way to earn money in college while taking stressful courses. There might even be jobs around you that you did not know existed. That local diner up the street is hiring a waiter! Your campus might even have posted a job for students requiring little to no experience, which might be helpful for some of us with minimal job experience. No matter the company, there might be something for you and the skills you possess.

Using LinkedIn, searching for these said jobs is even easier. You can input what position you are looking for and how much you want to work — full-time, part-time, or an internship. Then, the website does the work for you. They will suggest jobs based on what you have input. For example, I can say that I am looking for part-time writing jobs remotely, and LinkedIn will show me multiple jobs across the nation and locally. This step can make you skip your university's career education center altogether, but you should still consult them on improving things like your resume and your CV.

LinkedIn also works like a social media app. There is a feed. This feed helps you see the connections you have made and the organizations you have followed. You can also make posts and see other posts people have made. Making connections is the key to getting a good feed. You can start by adding people you know, like classmates and coworkers. After this, connections may begin to find you! Recruiters might see what you have to offer and want to connect with you for future purposes. You can also add people the same way. Look around for people within your field and add them. You may never know what that connection might bring you.

LinkedIn might seem like something big, scary, and only for people with corporate jobs, but you can use LinkedIn for your purposes. Sometimes, I use LinkedIn to keep track of my experiences. It helps me prepare for interviews by quickly reviewing my highlights. I also see what type of jobs and experiences my peers are into within their fields. LinkedIn can give college students many opportunities and experiences they might not have had otherwise.