I have a plan for next year…so what do I do now? Sit on my bum all day? Of course not! (Well, okay, somehow I have watched a fair number of Friends episodes, but we’ll leave that a mystery). Life has relaxed a little bit since deciding to take my job in Denmark. I recently booked my one-way ticket to Copenhagen (a very scary reality check) and I am now in the process of applying for my visa, which is proving fairly difficult.

Turns out that new jobs are becoming a family trend – my mom, dad and I have all accepted new jobs within the last two months. And the funny part is that my mom wasn’t even actively looking for a new job. Let me explain – my mom took on a year-long contract job with a not-particularly-interesting company, doing not-particularly-interesting work, but needed a job to hold her over until she could find something more fulfilling and permanent. She planned to stay with this job until the contract was over in February 2012, and then continue looking for a more career-advancing position. But one day she got an email from a familiar company. The woman said “I found you by searching on LinkedIn. Your profile is very interesting and I’m wondering if you’d be interested in talking to me about this position.” And it turns out that this position and company are exactly the kind of work that my mom was hoping to do after her contract job, so obviously she took the opportunity to interview and ended up getting the job. Can you believe it!?

Usually, we don’t think of jobs coming knocking on our doors. Of course we say that you’re the one responsible for going out to find opportunities, talk to people, apply to the job. And I don’t think that the message of my mom’s story is that you should just put information on your LinkedIn profile and some wonderful company will come find you. Because that doesn’t happen every day. But what I think I have learned from my mom’s story is that part of your career/internship search should be making sure that you are findable online because companies do use that information.

I think we’re now mostly aware that it’s important to know what information is online connected to our names. I just went back to my Facebook privacy settings and double checked that everything was “Friends only” – use this as a reminder that you should go check too! But I think that LinkedIn remains a mystery to a lot of us college students – we know that it is kind of like a mock-Facebook used for more professional purposes. But what is the benefit of adding a summary of our skills and experiences, or joining groups, or adding people to our network? Well, for one, you may get a potential job out of it (isn’t that enough motivation?). I also think that if your potential employer does see that you have a complete online profile, they will know that you are serious about your job search, have invested time in establishing an online presence, and are an active part of the online career community. I know I am impressed when I see another student’s LinkedIn profile complete with a summary, recommendations, and an substantial number of connections.

Here is a nice summary of how to use your LinkedIn profile to enhance your job search.

A couple of these points are particularly important:

1) Editing your profile – this may seem obvious, but try to include substantial information about your past experiences and jobs. You can take the information straight off of your resume! Try to provide detailed explanations of what you did in the position, just like you did on your resume.

2) Adding a professional summary – this is your opportunity to define yourself overall. Try use some key words that you think might be useful in a search – for example, “non-profit”, “communication”, or “marketing”.

3) Join relevant groups – just like on Facebook, groups are a good way to connect to people who have similar interests or experiences as you. And one of the many benefits of joining groups is that you can message fellow group members, even if they aren’t in your network! (Thanks for that tip, Valinda!) For all Scrippsies, remember that you can join the Scripps College Alumnae Association, even if you’re a current student.

So, the lesson here is that you can use online social media sites to benefit your search! It doesn’t mean that you should sit back and wait for the job to come to you (although my mom was very lucky!) but why not utilize all of your opportunities to be discovered!?