Optimizing LinkedIn for PHD Professionals

LOUANN ROHRBACH: My name is Louann Rohrbach. And I'm on the faculty in the Department of Preventive Medicine. And I'm the director of the Master of Public Health Programs. So I am here to welcome you on behalf of those of us who work here from the Soto Street Building and on behalf of the Department of Preventive Medicine faculty and staff.

I took a look at the list of students who had RSVP'ed, and I know quite a few of you are from the University Park campus. And I know it's not real easy to get over here to this building. It's not easy to find parking. So we really appreciate your participation and your willingness to come over here to the corner of the Health Science campus.

So I think you're going to really find today's program beneficial, interesting. So Paula and her colleagues from the graduate school and from the Keck School of Medicine organized this particular session and several similar to it last year.

And I remember seeing the evaluations from this session. And they were very positive. Students found the information very beneficial and interesting.

And I know probably this is a period of time in your lives where you're feeling a little bit anxious about the future and how to go about setting yourself up well for the future. So hopefully you'll get some good ideas from the presentation today.

So again, welcome. Please help yourselves to the food that was generously provided by the medical school. And I hope you enjoy the presentation.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

OK. Hi, everyone. Please just a few things before we get started. We want to make sure all your phones are silent, please.

And a second thing is, we are recording. We're live. And so if you do have a question, Sandy and I, we will try to repeat the question so the online students can hear.

And another thing is, if you want to get up and get more food, please go ahead. You're welcome to. Just try to be as silent and quiet as you can.

And the last thing, there are some handouts here that you get at the end. And I encourage you all to take one. If we run out, then we can send them out through the RSVP later on. I'll get them to Ashley to send out.

And a quick correction-- the food was provided by the graduate school. (CHUCKLING) I just want to give credit where credit is due. And the School of Pharmacy is also a collaborator on these series. So I just want to make sure that we include them.

My name is Paula Amezola. And I will be speaking today about LinkedIn. And today, I had one of our PhD alumni. I'll let him introduce himself.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Hi, everybody. I graduated here in 2016 in the biostatistics program. And I think right around that time, maybe early to mid 2010 is when LinkedIn started getting very popular.

And I think LinkedIn has been a tremendous resource me in terms of being accessible to recruiters for different positions, or at least the opportunity to interview, which is also an experience that I think I always value, to always keep up with my resume or my CV and keep up with my communication skills and expanding my network and things like that. So I think the benefit of LinkedIn for me has been that.

I teach. I'm an assistant professor at Chapman University in Orange in the math department. I also have a part-time assignment with a contract research organization called Integrium. They do pharmaceutical research and have a biostatistician in their group.

One of the other, bigger things that I do in terms of the consulting that I do is I'm a community board member for the Institutional Review Board for Southern California Kaiser. And that's also been something that, through doing these networks that I've been able to establish and to get access to, an opportunity that has been a tremendous part of my growth as a professional, balancing this idea of, we deal with data, and we never really see the patients or the subjects.

And then, here is this other side of research where your job is solely protection of human subjects and research. So that's been a tremendous experience.

And I'm really happy to be back. When I was here as a student, we didn't have a lot of these things. So this is great that this partnership is creating the opportunities for all of you moving forward.

PAULA AMEZOLA: OK, thank you. Thank you, Sandy. [INAUDIBLE]

And just so I can introduce myself briefly. My name is Paula Amezola, and I am the career advisor and coordinator for the graduate students at Preventive Medicine. And I do a lot of resume, cover letter review. And lately, I've been organizing a lot of events such as this, because I get so much more bang for my limited resources.

And as you can tell, we have about 40 students in the room right now. And that means that I don't need to meet with 40 students one-on-one. And that's why I do the workshops. And they're typically at night.

And this is one of the workshops that I do. And I typically call it "Professional Story." And I'll let you know why. And we will get started.

Oh, briefly, my background is in epidemiology. And so I do stay very connected to public health and continue to do projects that are public health focused. My latest project that was actually published was with UC Merced. We did an asset map for health communication. And I was very happy that the PhD student was able to do her dissertation on that project. And it was published on Health Communication journal.

So I do want to learn a little bit of who is in the audience so that, as we go through the presentation, we can tailor it. How many are from main campus? OK, a few. So from main campus, what are the schools that are here?

SPEAKER 1: [INAUDIBLE]

PAULA AMEZOLA: The [INAUDIBLE].

SPEAKER 2: [INAUDIBLE]

PAULA AMEZOLA: [INAUDIBLE]

SPEAKER 3: Social Work.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Social Work, OK. And so everybody else is from Health Science. And what schools or programs are here? Anybody want to tell us?

SPEAKER 4: Pharmacy.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Pharmacy, nice.

SPEAKER 5: Biochemistry.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Biochem. Any others? Do we have any biostats? That's interesting. OK. OK, we're learning.

Well, thank you so much for all of you who came. And we do appreciate you making an effort to come to our Soto Building. And we thank you for breaking down those transportation barriers. We will get started now.

As I mentioned earlier, this talk I call "Your Professional Story." And the reason really is because I did a research study at Annenberg where our team was evaluating whether narrative stories are more powerful than non-narratives. And we found that narratives really help individuals connect with others.

And so when you tell a story, people will make a connection to their personal life. And when they make this connection with their personal life during an interview or when they're reviewing your LinkedIn profile, then you're going to be remembered.

And they're going to make an effort to say, hi, do you remember this student from Pharmacy that did this research? And when they review your resume or your summary on LinkedIn, that's what they're going to remember. They're going to remember what you wrote about if you are able to connect with them through a story.

And your professional story is just part of your life. And it's part of your career. And I really hope that all of you really embrace your professional story.

Start talking about your professional story. Disseminate it widely. Don't be shy about showing your resume to people. Be open to the possibility of getting some constructive feedback on LinkedIn or resume, because it's through those connections and that feedback that you will improve your brand and your value and what you're putting out there. Sandy?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And just imagine the number of people that you're competing with for those opportunities, for the different job interviews. It's an opportunity to set yourself apart from other individuals that just are doing the bare minimum in terms of promoting themselves.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yeah. So today, these are the points that we wanted to cover. Can you raise your hand to let me know who has a LinkedIn profile? OK. Maybe I should ask, who doesn't have a LinkedIn profile? Oh, OK. Very few.

OK. So we will go over how to open a LinkedIn profile. And I encourage you, if you have your laptop, please start. Go to LinkedIn, and start opening-- you have two choices. Let me see. Well, go to LinkedIn, and we will walk you through how to open your LinkedIn account.

These are the different sections of the conversation we'll have today. And we hope that by the end you at least understand what each of these sections should include.

So we briefly talked about your professional story. And what LinkedIn does is it allows for you to put your full professional story on there. I encourage you to put anything that you have done after high school.

And for those who are international students, if you're planning to stay in the US, put anything that you have done in the US and anything relevant from your home country that you want to continue working on. So for example, I have a lot of students that maybe were dentists in India, but they no longer want to do dental work. And so I say, well, it's up to you to include it or not.

But a recruiter who sees, like, oh, this person has a lot of dentistry experience may think like, oh, they still want to do dentistry work. Because you're basically letting them know, hey, come look at me. I am interested. And these are my interests. You have anything else?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Yeah. Also LinkedIn, it's a corporation that is seeking to make profit. So part of the profit that they make is by connecting individuals like you with the companies that are looking for jobs to be filled. So it is in their best interests to make those matches happen and for those connections to be made. And this is just a part of the things that make your profile a lot more attractive in terms of your experience, highlighting your experience.

And also something that I think is going to come up that you'll see, is this is also your opportunity to keep all of your stuff current. There are times when I'm asked for a resume or a CV, and I don't keep a Word document of that anymore. Everything is on my LinkedIn. And so I just go in there and I can either copy and paste or create whatever it is that I need at the moment. So LinkedIn, it's been quite a tremendous tool for me to use.

PAULA AMEZOLA: And now LinkedIn has a new feature where you can create a PDF of your LinkedIn profile. And I'll show you how to do that.

So why should you be on LinkedIn? I think you should be on LinkedIn because it's the new way to search for jobs. It has more than 500 million users. And a quarter of a million are active every month. And I think that going forward, LinkedIn will have more and more users. And it will be the way that we connect.

I see new features every couple months that they're putting together. The latest one is, I got a LinkedIn request saying, we see that you're a coach. Would you like to provide coaching services for free [LAUGHS] to our members?

And of course, I'm like, well, if I had my own business, it would be good to connect with the members of LinkedIn and do like a free session and then build that type of community, where they've met with me once. And there was a free session that connected me through LinkedIn. And then if they want a second session, I can do a business. So that's another thing, that it will be an opportunity for people to use LinkedIn for future business and entrepreneur opportunities.

And I think the most important thing-- and this is why I was saying, like put on LinkedIn things that you are interested in working in, your expertise, your research, anything that you've done, and anything that still feels that is part of your professional story and you want to move forward. Because the reason you're going to put your profile on LinkedIn is because you want to be found. You want the recruiters to find you. You want to find jobs. And you want organizations and businesses to find you.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: It's also an opportunity for you to put some of the volunteer experiences that you have. I also feel that, aside from just having the qualifications, the degree, the experience, there's this other side of, well, who am I hiring? Who's this person? And what are their interests? And there is the opportunity on LinkedIn to provide that information and make it accessible for the recruiters and for people that want to hire.

PAULA AMEZOLA: So here are just a few facts, just in case you don't believe me-- why LinkedIn is important. And I do want to mention that these are facts from January of 2018. And as you can tell, it's important-- some people say, well, I don't want to be on LinkedIn because it's only for people who are looking for something-- looking for a job. I'm not currently looking.

I get also like, I don't want to put my stuff out there. I don't believe in social media. I get things such as, it really doesn't do anything for me because I have a wide connection in person with individuals.

And I think these are all myths. And I hope that these facts show you. 41% of millionaires use LinkedIn. Mind you, they're only 1% of society. But half of the millionaires are using LinkedIn. That means 0.5 of the millionaires are using LinkedIn. And that's something considerable. Because if you want to be found by people who have capital for a business or someone that has an organization, then LinkedIn is a good place for you to be.

Also, job postings have become huge on LinkedIn-- for big companies and little companies. And I think it's better than Indeed.

Oh, I should ask you. How many of you are about to graduate, and you're done, and you're looking? 1? 2. OK. So everybody else, thank you so much for coming. Because it's really important for you to start building your LinkedIn account early on.

If you're about to graduate, you need to get on a speedboat and get all of this done. Because you need to build your network. And the way you build your network is slowly as you're building your reputation, your brand, your expertise, you have to know that it takes some time to do that. So for those who are graduating, please get on a speedboat and start putting yourself out there. Anything else you want to say about the fun facts?

OK. So for those who don't have a LinkedIn account, go to LinkedIn. You can sign up using Facebook or import your email contacts. Given the scandals with Facebook, I encourage all of our students to use your Gmail or whatever contacts you have, and open your LinkedIn account with your personal Gmail contacts.

And make sure that you select contacts that are professional-- that you know them in a professional way. Because there are some of our friends who are not very professional. And you don't want them to be on LinkedIn saying something that might come back and haunt you when you're interviewing.

So LinkedIn is social media. But it's social media in a professional manner. And let's not confuse that with Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, thank you. Let's not confuse. Those are personal social media. LinkedIn is your professional profile.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And along with your internet security, remember your LinkedIn contains information about you, about where you've worked, about where you're planning to work or what you're going to search for. So this is definitely an opportunity to start practicing some of that safe behavior of being online and being a professional on social media-- the type of pictures that you post.

Especially now, if you're opening the account right now, it's the password that you're using, how often you change it. So all those things, it's a great opportunity. No site, no social media service is never going to experience a hack or anything like that. So keep that in mind because of the information that you're putting out there about yourself.

PAULA AMEZOLA: So it should look something like this. And here you can put your information, a password, and you can say Join.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And it's free.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yes. I forget say, we will discuss at the end the premium version, which is $29.99 what are the components that that has. And I, for example, have only used Premium for like a month while I needed to connect with people outside my network. And they give you like 10, I believe-- 10 free connections. You can tap into the 500 million people that are in LinkedIn and send them a personalized email through Premium. But you only get like 10 of those emails.

And if $30 is on your budget, then it's maybe worth it. Because you'll have a connection to someone that maybe you met at a conference and you lost their business cards and you want to connect with them, but you can't because you don't have their email. And this is a person that's really important for your career. And maybe you want to pay for it.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: There are also features that you don't have access to unless you have a premium account, like the people that view your profile-- you do have access to some of those individuals. But others, like for example, maybe some top-level recruiters or maybe executives that view your profile-- LinkedIn just tells you, hey, somebody viewed your profile. And you want to see what that was, go ahead and pay for the Premium.

So you can use it. I've never had to use the premium version. So you can definitely have a lot of usability and utilization without having to pay.

PAULA AMEZOLA: OK. So in order for you to change your URL, I want to show you what I mean. You get a See Contact Information. So you can see, like my profile URL, typically what you see is that it has a long number here.

And so you can personalize this profile name by just clicking this little pencil here. And then click down-- where is it? Right here. You go there, and that arrow.

I know these three steps. And I don't know why they make it so difficult, other than to make sure that only a few people change the URL. They prefer to put numbers next to our URL. But I think it's worth to change your URL to be unique to your name without any number. OK.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And also, if you're going to put it on a business card, if you're even going to use business cards or maybe a PowerPoint slide, also make it something that isn't-- like my name, I have like four names, and I probably need to update my URL for LinkedIn because I have all of them on there. Something that makes it easier.

PAULA AMEZOLA: So these are the three steps to change your URL, which is, go to your contact information. Click on the first pencil. Then click on the arrow. Then click on the pencil, and edit. It's three steps. So I encourage you. It's worth to do the three steps and have a personalized URL.

And by the way, I wanted to say, we will send the video out. And so you will have access to the PowerPoint on the video. So if you have your computer, I would say try to do the things that we're talking about on your LinkedIn. If you don't have a computer, then don't worry. Because the video will be sent out to everybody who RSVP'ed.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And there's also an app for LinkedIn that you connect to with your smart phone.

PAULA AMEZOLA: So the next component of our presentation is what to include in your profile. These are the different components of the profile. The headline-- it's the number one thing that I recommend. And the headline is basically your title.

However, I discourage you from using your work title or your student title. Do you want to be found by a recruiter that looks, USC student, or do you want to be found by your specialty-- health communication expert?

Frankly, I think that our expertise makes us unique. And I encourage you to think about your headline that you're going to include in your LinkedIn profile. And it's so important that this will have a follow-up slide.

Then we have the summary statement. The summary statement is the second most important thing in your profile, because recruiters determine whether they will call you for an interview. And they found you on LinkedIn, or you applied online, or someone sent a resume to them-- they will not interview you unless they feel like your summary statement is compatible or a match for what they're looking for.

So it's really important for your summary to be a good match for the jobs that you're working in. And the top two sentences is what recruiters see when they're doing a search.

Then we have experience, which is any experience. We already mentioned, include anything that you want to be identified with that is part of your brand. Your education is important. Anything after high school. All your volunteer work is important. There is a section for that.

Photo-- when it comes to photos, you don't need to go to a professional to do a head shot. But what you must do is make sure that, if you are using your cell phone, that it's not a selfie. Someone else is taking you. It has a simple background and that you look professional.

So if I was to take a head shot today, my blouse looks professional. My jacket looks professional. I have professional makeup and hair. And I encourage you to really take a picture like if you're going for an interview. You want to have that brand that you're interview-ready.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And I think it's very subject-specific. If we were talking to a group of maybe artists or humanities majors, it would be a completely different type of feel that you would have for your LinkedIn profile, the picture that you would take. Especially those individuals that can afford maybe someone-- a photographer-- to come to their business or whatever, some pictures are really, really nice.

But if you have the Portrait function or you know a friend has a really fancy iPhone X or a Google phone, use that portrait function. I mean, it works. It does when you need it to do. It's the correct file size. It can be really easy to get a really nice, professional picture for the type of careers I think that we're all going to be aiming for.

Something about the experience is, actually when you have-- what is it called-- the premium version of LinkedIn, there is an opportunity to apply directly within LinkedIn for some jobs. And so what that means is that that automatically means that all of your information is going to be most likely imported in some way or used.

So if you don't have your education completed, a lot of jobs have a minimum education requirements. And so if you do have that but you don't put it, that will automatically excluded from those opportunities or getting further into the interview process.

PAULA AMEZOLA: And I want to say, Sandy, that's a very good point. Because, as you can tell, on my profile picture, I'm not wearing a jacket. I don't look like this on my LinkedIn profile.

And I am passionate about working with projects that build equity and build healthy communities that are under-served. And so I felt like I needed my profile picture to represent what I'm looking for, which is diversity and equity. And that's why I picked this photo that has a very Mexican, traditional scarf.

Also, you have the option to change your background on your profile. And I think this is like when you want to demonstrate your hobbies-- like what are your hobbies or what you're interested in.

And one of my hobbies is to travel where there are pyramids. And this is a Mexico City pyramid. And I think it's one of the most beautiful places that I've visited in the past few years. So I encourage you to personalize this.

So Sandy is absolutely correct, that you should personalize it. It shouldn't look like everybody else. Because the point of it is to be found. And you're not going to be found if you are just like everybody else. So put a little bit of personalization-- what are your hobbies and what are your interests-- in your background.

And then put a professional picture where you show your interest, but at the same time, it is professional. And it's not your picture at your wedding with your spouse. It's not you--

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: With your pet.

PAULA AMEZOLA: --with your pet. Correct, I've seen those. And definitely, this is your profile. So you need to be alone in the picture. Nobody should be part of the LinkedIn picture.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: It's not a dating profile or anything like that. It's who you're going to look like when you go to work, who do they expect to see when you come into the interview. Click that.

PAULA AMEZOLA: OK. So moving to the headline here-- and this is our guest speaker-- why don't you tell us a little bit why you chose educator, researcher, and community advocate?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: So I chose a very simple background, that picture up at the top. That's, I guess, for the same reason that I don't have tattoos, because I couldn't really pick something that I would be happy with long-term because I don't update those aesthetic things too often. I really just go in there and update different experiences that I've been having professionally.

But educator, researcher, community advocate-- if I could pick the three things or the things that I do, is my teaching-- my academic experiences are probably the most important right now in my life and my career. Researcher is probably the second important, both in industry and in academia. And community advocate-- I think this is the other part of what I do, in terms of my volunteering. I'm sitting on different boards for nonprofit organizations.

I want that to be very evident that you're not just getting a nerd when you interact with me. You're getting someone that's interested in bigger issues, in collective community service type of work. So that's why I chose that.

And that picture-- a colleague of mine at the university I work for, he was the one that sent it over for someone to edit it. And this was before I knew about the whole portrait thing. This is maybe two or three years ago.

And now you could get a picture that looks like that-- just get someone on Portrait mode to get you maybe with a nice background or whatever. You could do a lot of the fixing of the shiny-ness and all that stuff automatically on your phone. So it's accessible to have something nice on your profile. But that's why I chose it.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Fantastic. Here are some do's and don't's about your headline. I encourage you not to use USC student. I do encourage you to make it unique. I encourage you to add your research.

We're all PhD students. You all have research interest. And think about a unique aspect of your college education. Maybe you started a club. Maybe you specialize in a certain industry.

And ask yourself the following questions. What are you known currently? And so Sandy currently is known as--

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Mainly my academic teaching experience.

PAULA AMEZOLA: What can you offer?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: I can offer knowledge. I can offer evidence-based methodology if this is a research-type of position. I can offer years of experience in classroom settings and experience in teaching in many different modalities and many different types of students.

PAULA AMEZOLA: The last question to consider potentially adding to your header is, how can you show credibility?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: This is where you start-- I think there is a service now called Grammarly too, where you can automatically write something, and then it gives you suggestions on how to improve it. This would be a great use of that. This is where you can maybe write a sentence about how to highlight some of the experiences you have.

And I know when I was about to graduate, I had a lack of confidence with that research experience that I had. And so I thought, man, am I really going to get a job in industry? Or am I going to be that type of candidate that's going to seem, at least with my research experience-- but it took a little bit of practice to highlight the things that were very specific to what I did.

So it takes work. But the good thing about that work is that, you do it once, and maybe you do it every once in a while as you get those new experiences, and then it becomes easier. But it's something that you should always keep up with.

PAULA AMEZOLA: And this is just one way to do the headline. In my headline, I believe right now I have 16 years of public health experience, which shows my credibility. I have epidemiology, which is what you can offer. And then, what you are known for-- right now is career coach.

I think it's so much more entertaining to have a PhD guest speaker here, because then I can just put him on the spot. [LAUGHS]

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: I've got to admit to you, the presentation that Paula made, I looked at it, and I though, oh man, there's so much more that I could do. Because LinkedIn, as you mentioned, they update the content that you can post about yourself.

I think at some point when I first opened up my LinkedIn, I was at that-- they give you a rating based on how complete your profile is. And so in the beginning, it was like, super complete. All of a sudden, maybe two months later, now my rating has decreased because they've added different features that I haven't updated yet. And so going back to the presentation, I though, oh, this is a great opportunity to start looking into enhancing the profile.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yeah. And I actually did ask him. I was like, hey, can you put a summary statement over there? What would you put in your summary statement?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And that was my mistake, because I thought, oh, I put all the interesting things in each individual experience, and I didn't put it all together in one summary statement. And what I think that's going to do is, I do get emails from recruiters about opportunities and research and things like that.

But I think, in that summary statement, I also put, these are the things that I'm interested in right now. Please collaborate with me on these community service type of projects. Or if you have some industry level research that you would like a biostatistician's perspective on or to any input, let me know, and I am available for those types of experiences.

PAULA AMEZOLA: So we're going to go to LinkedIn now. [INAUDIBLE]

Are you [INAUDIBLE], Sandy?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Yep. I'm a little nervous now.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Uh-oh.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: [CHUCKLES]

PAULA AMEZOLA: OK. So as you can tell, we looked at his headline. Also want to encourage you all to please take a look at the degree. Any graduate degree, you should put your initials up at the top [INAUDIBLE]

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: OK.

PAULA AMEZOLA: OK. So if you already have an MS or you have an MPH or you have a PhD, all of that goes right next to your name at the top. Because these two lines right here-- actually, these three lines-- I went to a presentation where the recruiter was telling us that Google has linked with LinkedIn. And so when you google your name, location, or the headline, this is what's going to come up at the top.

So let's say you're saying Sandy from Orange County. His LinkedIn profile will come out on Google search at the top. And it's because they have a collaboration where they have built an algorithm. So the first three lines will come out on a Google search. So that's why it's so important.

If you're interested in going and working in New York, or Chicago, or somewhere else other than LA-- and I encourage you, where it says Location to put that location. Especially those who are graduating and you're about to start applying to opportunities in Portland or Seattle, then put that location on there so that when recruiters are looking for you, they can find, oh, this individual wants to work in this area.

And there are some organizations who-- they're human. They have humans that run their organizations and they're biased. And the bias with location is a real bias. So if an organization needs to fly you in for an interview, they might be like, oh, we're just going to put them on side. And if we don't find any good candidates, we'll consider this individual later.

And if let's say you have a family member in the Bay Area, and you want to move back to the Bay Area, then use your family's address. Use your LinkedIn. Put Location, Bay Area. Start making the move on your career documents. Because it will facilitate you being reviewed for an interview.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And also something about the names that you use. So the reason why I kept all my four names is because that's what's on my degree. That's the only reason. I think if maybe in the future, as I get a little more removed from having graduated, I think I would definitely shorten that a lot more. Because I think my experience would speak more than my actual piece of paper that I got from the university. So for now, that's what works because that's how people know me. But that's going to change. So [CHUCKLES] that's a lot of names.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yeah. So we're just going to go through the different-- so here's the experience, right. So Sandy has put his accomplishments and where he's currently working, his consulting work, his board with Kaiser.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And then this is much older stuff-- some of the stuff that I did here at USC in terms of my research, my RA and TA experience.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yeah. And please include that, because companies want to hire people that can manage and can work with people. I know that we have somebody from [INAUDIBLE]. And my husband works at the other school-- the School of Engineering at the other school.

And one of the things that he helps all those students understand is that engineers, aside from all their expertise, they need to know how to work with people. They need to know how to communicate their vision, where they see their product going, what could be the potential barriers to creating something new, coding, and how to work in a team, how to supervise a team, how to lead a team, how to do a project. And so what you do in school, such as research assistant, adjutant faculty, even if you're doing research like with a faculty member, it's really important for you to document that, because it's all showing your credibility.

So after experience, there's the education where he explained his research interest, his volunteer experience. Do you sleep?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: [CHUCKLES]

PAULA AMEZOLA: [CHUCKLES]

The answer is no. [LAUGHS]

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Not too much.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Then here are the skills and endorsements. And I encourage you to find as many skills as you possibly can and to request individuals to say, yes, this person has done this skill.

And so who do you send your profile to? You will send it to your peers and your research cohort. You will send it to your faculty. You will send it to, perhaps if you are a TA and you teach a class during your time here, then you want to make sure that you get a few of the students that you are a TA for to also agree that these are skills that you have. And the more skills that you have, the easier it is to be found by recruiters.

And just like you want people to confirm your skill, you want to also confirm if somebody asks you. Make sure-- and you will get reminders. You will get like a little email that says, like, John from USC is requesting to endorse him for statistics.

And then sometimes it will ask you, how do you know John? Did you do statistics together? Did you do not? Did John supervise you? Or did you supervise John? Or were you colleagues? And then you answer those questions.

And then you will get a number. So as you can see here, 29 people have endorsed Sandy on statistics. You want to add something on that?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Yeah. I think for me, when I'm on LinkedIn I have to remind myself that I'm not on other social media platforms. Here it's one of those things where, at least for me, I'm very selective with the people that I connect with and also very selective with the people that I accept connections from.

Because this is my professional network. These are the people that I work with. I would say, maybe when I was younger, it was like, oh, look at how many friends I have on Facebook or whatever. Now it's like, look at the quality of the individuals that I connect with. And also looking at people's profiles, I mean, now it's a feature that it tells you-- hey, look, who looked at your profile.

And so it's counter-intuitive maybe for that type of behavior that you have with your other social media platforms. Here it's like, please, look at my profile. See if the things that I've done-- let me know what you think. Give me an endorsement if it's something that we've worked out together.

And now there's another side with referrals or recommendations. You can write letters of recommendation directly on LinkedIn. You can request letters of recommendation from the people you've worked with. So it's a very different type of behavior, but it's all geared towards enhancing your professional life.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Your professional story.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Yes, your professional story.

PAULA AMEZOLA: I love "professional story." OK, so how do you get a recommendation? So you see how this-- I really don't like this feature. This is a new feature. So as you scroll down, this header pops. And from there, you can get a recommendation, OK.

So I want to demonstrate one more time because the header is gone. And I really don't like that, because before you could just click on these three little dots, and they were always there, and you knew where to go. And now they made a little bit more difficult, where you're like, oh, how do I get there? You get there by scrolling down. So you click on that arrow.

And then here-- is an under More now? LinkedIn has this double-negative thing where it's positive that they're adding new features, but at the same time, you're constantly learning how to do the things because they're changing it all the time.

But I thought it was here-- Work Experience, Volunteer Experience, Skills. Additional Information-- [INAUDIBLE]. So under Additional Information-- of course, why didn't they just put Recommendations?

You can select this plus sign. And you can ask for a recommendation. And I encourage you to ask for recommendations with people that you have actually worked with. So you can ask for a student that you are a TA to write your recommendation.

And you can review it. Before you post it on LinkedIn, it will show you that recommendation and say, do you want this recommendation? And if you do, you say Post, Publish, and you will be able to publish it. And if you click on it, it will ask me who do I want to ask? And these are the contacts that I already have a connection with on my LinkedIn.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: I think also for this, for asking for a recommendation, especially because you have everyone on a social network, you don't necessarily have access directly to them. So I think this also goes with maybe some old school advice, with maybe keep in touch with people on a maybe biannual basis-- maybe every six months or every year that you would maybe change jobs.

You have another resource at your disposal, and you say, hey, network, by the way, this is my new job. This is what I do. If you ever need anything or, you know.

That way, you keep in touch with the people that maybe knew you when you had that experience together. And as more time goes by, it's a little easier to go back and ask, hey, can you write me a letter of recommendation? Because we've kept in touch and you know what I've been about.

It's really awkward, especially now that I teach undergrads, for undergraduate students that have had me for one semester ask me for a letter of recommendation. And I'm like, I don't know you that well. Aside from whatever we've done in class, that's as far as I know. So to build that rapport with individuals, I think, is important-- still, even now, when everything is in social media.

PAULA AMEZOLA: And so I encourage you to ask for recommendations. So I have asked students that I have done career services. And this is a student that I work very closely with. She was an international student. And so there was a lot of barriers to finding employment here. And so we worked together for almost two years, the two years that she was here. And that's why I asked her for a recommendation.

I also asked for recommendations from someone that I supervised, I managed-- another student here that I helped. Typically the trajectory of getting career services help goes like this. I see a student in their first year of their MPH, maybe work on resume. Then the second semester, they're like, oh, I'm applying for internships for the summer. We'll go over the cover letter. Then they start looking for a job. We start doing mock interviews.

And so when I have worked with the student and we've done cover letter, resume, mock interviews, then I asked him for a letter, because we have that rapport that we've been building for the past two years. So these are some students that I have worked very closely. I have here publications that I have worked with doing research before I started doing career coach and I was doing research at USC. And so these are publications from that.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And Paula has her profile-- it's very complete. And that's what I want to aspire to, is as I'm getting my publication record up and as I get these other pretty awesome experiences is making the type to put them into this environment so that I don't have to do it again later, right. Instead of keeping my master Word document with all of-- my CV or whatever, it's all here.

PAULA AMEZOLA: And I'm going to show you how to do a PDF. Oops. [LAUGHS] So remember I was looking for Recommendation? And you can see this window once you scroll down. Here's the Accomplishments. And there it is-- Additional Information, and you can get the Recommendation.

OK, so I said that the summary statement is one of the most important aspects. It's the second most important aspect of your profile. And the reason is, it's because that's what, when they find you on Google search, they will see the top two lines of your summary statement. And also that's what recruiters read before they decide to put you in the black hole, AKA, no interview, or on the stack where you're going to be a potential interview. OK.

I encourage you to have the top two lines be the hook. You want to make sure that you cook them so that they read the rest of the summary. You want to ensure that it's a story-- something that can connect with the person reading this-- and that you demonstrate accomplishments.

And what I mean by accomplishments-- and I'll show you a couple of summaries-- is if you publish articles with your team, I encourage you to actually put a number to that. If you manage a database with 30,000 people, then put numbers to your accomplishments. If you have read all the literature for mental health illnesses, put that number. I've read more than 100 articles and have an extensive literature review.

Because when I was doing research and we were looking for PhD students to work with us, that was one of the things that the faculty loved. Well, what's your expertise? What literature have you read?

And especially at Annenberg, I've found that the expertise was so crucial because methods are so specific. I remember looking for a PhD student. And we wanted that PhD student to have communication that transports people into stories. And it was so very specific, but we found somebody. And if you have that specific expertise, then tell us about it.

And finally, show what you're passionate about. I have found some individuals who say, I have done data analysis, regression, multivariate. I don't want to do that anymore. I just don't want to do that anymore. Then don't put it here. Because this is not what you want to be hired for. This is not what you want to be found for. Put there what you're passionate about, what you want to be found.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And your professional experience is much more than what you do for a paycheck. I think there are things that you can include in the summary-- projects that you want to be maybe considered for, different experiences that you're looking for, if they're beyond just your paycheck, money career path. What if it's your passion, philanthropy, things like that, that you're interested in.

The other thing about LinkedIn is that it's a tool that you can use when you're not necessarily looking for a job. I think stories that I've heard of colleagues that have been maybe laid off, thinking that they were in a job that they were going to be in for many years, or that they had been in for many years, having been laid off, going through the process of getting all their paperwork ready, all their cover letters done, all their resume stuff done, and then asking maybe old contacts for, hey, do you have any positions available or anything like that? I mean, that's like starting over from scratch.

So keeping something like this as an insurance policy, is something that always keeps your skills very sharpened, especially if you're thinking, man, I don't want to take any interviews because I'm not looking for a job. Take the interview.

Those are the opportunities that you can get to practice your communication skills. All the other little things that people talk about-- the handshake, the eye contact, do you stay seated down when you meet someone and you shake their hand or do you stand upright? All these things that you get the chance to really put into practice.

And especially for someone like me with some of the research, if you're really research-oriented, I mean, how often do you really get to interact professionally with other human beings? It's a challenge-- it can be.

PAULA AMEZOLA: A new feature that I encourage you to start using in LinkedIn when you post or in your summary is to put keywords and specialties, and you can hashtag them. So let's say you are an expert-- can someone tell me what are they researching or what are they' working on? That way, we can work on a hashtag that's relevant to you all. Anybody want to talk about their work? What are you working on Sandy?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: I do interim monitoring methodology research.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Oh my god. OK, very specific.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And cancer clinical trials.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Oh, thank you-- #cancerclinicaltrials. So you can put that at the end of your summary. And then what happens is that you are now going to be creating this hashtag #cancerclinicaltrials. And any time anybody uses #cancerclinicaltrials, you are going to pop up with that search. And that's a new feature. LinkedIn didn't support hashtags, and now they do.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And there's different levels of recruiters. I think the recruiters that are very aggressive in terms of they don't care whether you're available or not, they're going to offer you some sort of opportunity for an interview. There are others where they're looking through your profile. And if you don't show any interest that you're looking or that you're interested in new opportunities, then, like Paula said, you're going to be put in pile where you're probably not going to get contacted.

PAULA AMEZOLA: So a summary statement can have all of these or some of these. we're going to go over through some summary statements that I looked at. So here is one of our investigators at USC, here at Preventive Medicine.

And so can we get a little interactive? What are some aspects of what we just discussed that you see here? Anybody?

So Dr. Blumenthal is a professor. His major research contributions have been in the areas of HIV. So he's talking about HIV epidemiology. So he could easily say #HIVepidemiology.

He also has name put numbers here. Blumenthal has published over 110 studies. He then, at the end, put some keywords-- addiction, alcoholism, experimental research, social science.

And so this has a few of the components that we've talked about. And I don't think you need to incorporate all the components we talked about. But I would say this is a good summary that a recruiter will probably be like, oh. If this person was looking and this is what we needed, like an HIV expert, then they would probably put him in the interview section.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And this is someone that has had an extensive career in their field.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yes.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: So how can you, with the limited experience that we've had as students and about to enter the job market, how can we make a summary statement look attractive and highlight the experiences that we've had? I think that's the test. It's aiming for this in terms of a career experience, but how can you use those keywords, highlight the experiences you've had that are very specific to what you want [INAUDIBLE]?

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yeah. I think aside from posting the 110 studies, I think pretty much every PhD student can put a profile like this, where you say what you're doing your research on-- like, what's your thesis going to be about. And then you put your interest and information. Yes?

LOU-ANN ROHRBACH: For maybe some of our students who are a little earlier on into their career, would it be appropriate to have how many presentations you've given?

PAULA AMEZOLA: Absolutely.

LOU-ANN ROHRBACH: Abstracts accepted, things of that nature?

PAULA AMEZOLA: Presentations, abstracts, these are two of the most important skills that PhD students possess. Writing abstracts-- that means that you can write and that your peers appreciate your writing because you got accepted to present at XY conference.

And the second one is presenting in public-- public speaking is important. If you cannot communicate the science that you're studying, it's like your science didn't happen.

So when you're doing your research, you're getting your PhD, you write a thesis-- if you cannot communicate that through writing or public speaking, then your career may be hindered and have a slower trajectory. And so those are, I think one of the top two skills that you need to become proficient.

I have a goal that in the summer, when I don't do any presentations, that I do pro bono presentations. And the reason is, I don't want to have three, four months of not presenting. Because I want to keep my public skills sharp.

Because if I can't communicate to you my knowledge of how to get a job and how to maneuver your career development, then I have nothing. I don't have a career. And so public speaking in my profession-- both in public health, epidemiology, and as a career coach-- it's super important to have public speaking sharp.

So I encourage you to volunteer when someone says like, hey, would you like to present? Yes. I would like to come and present that. And I'm going to put Sandy on the spot. Sandy, why did you accept to come speak with us today?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Because it gives me an opportunity to be in front of people, communicate-- even if I don't feel like I'm an expert, all right. Like, I looked at her profile, and I thought, oh man. What am I getting into? But at least it gives me an opportunity to learn, to be put on the spot, and to communicate as effectively as I can. I have to remind myself to enunciate when I'm speaking into a mic.

PAULA AMEZOLA: And I do "um's" all the time. And so these are things that we work on. And we cannot work on this until you are actually modeling and doing the activity that you need to work on and improve.

Here's another summary statement. And this is the investigator that I conducted my work with. She is in health communication. We did an asset mapping of health communication channels and went to California-- a rural area up north of California. And so some of the things that we see here, she is a communications scientist, focused on harnessing the power of communication to improve Latino health and reduce cancer health disparities.

Now, this is a really nice statement. This is what I call that two-sentence hook, that it's broad but specific, and it really highlights her passion in her work. Do you have anything to say?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: No. Yeah, this is a great example of what I would love to include.

PAULA AMEZOLA: And then she just goes, and she gives a list of specialties-- things that she's working on and that she wants to be known for. So this is another type of summary statement that I really appreciate because I love just that it's two sentences-- one sentence. It's one sentence, two lines, and it really hooks you and say, like, I want it read. What is this person about? Because it shows her passion, her interest, and her experience.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Some of these statements, I think, they make it look easy. Oh, she probably woke up that morning and just said, oh, this is my expertise. It's probably something that's evolved over time.

I worked with high school students. And now that they're going on to college and things like that, helping them formulate sentences for their cover letters and for their resumes, I'm sitting there thinking, man, some of the things that I have on my resumes, I've been developing over the last 10 to 15 years of my academic and work experience.

And so it doesn't happen overnight to have something like this. There's so much work-- at least on my part, personally, because I don't communicate like this often, right. So it's like, how do I build something so that it's as concise as possible, as specific as possible, but as profound as it can be, and be effective in such a small space?

PAULA AMEZOLA: So I do have a trick up my sleeve. Oh, I have one more sample. OK. So I like this one too. Sorry, I thought it was the next page.

So this summary statement, what are some of the things that I notice here? I like the specialties. I think that the reason I picked it was because they're international. And so their summary is in two languages. So you can see she's trilingual-- German and English. And if you look at her summary, is in two languages.

But I really appreciated that she talked about her broad experience in medical information, management, and the pharmaceutical industry, both in large, multinational and a startup company. Good knowledge on drug development. Even though it's a lot longer than the last example, I really felt that she can capture the essence of her expertise.

And also, I liked that, even though some of the competencies that she put at the bottom are repeated from her summary, it's OK to do duplicate because some people prefer to read bullet points. And so she's putting it in a bullet point, just outlined it, and then she puts it in a summary.

OK. So this is the trick. So stories have been used since the beginning of the human history. We communicated through stories for a very long time.

However, career development documents have typically demonstrated to us like, put things in a list. Put your education, put your experience, put it in the list. We have bullet points on resumes. And I encourage you to think about what would your professional documents look like if, instead of just listing things, that you put them in a story?

And the story has three very clear components. Chapter 1, in the beginning, and you describe the situation of your experience. The middle, chapter 2, you talk about the actions that you took to execute that activity. Chapter 3, the end, you put all the pieces together, and you said, what are the results and the outcomes?

And I think that if the history of humans has communicated through stories, then I encourage us that we use them to communicate our professional story. And I'm going to show you how to do that.

This is an equation. Yes, we're math people. We like equations. We like to say 1 plus 1 equals 2 sometimes. So if you tell me what is the situation, what are your actions, then this can lead us to the result.

And I encourage you to think about, this is a method-- it's called the SAR method-- a method that I didn't invent. It's a method that's used for interviewing techniques. So when you're interviewing, someone can say-- Sandy, I'm going to put you on the spot-- Sandy, can you tell us more about the clinical trials that you're doing? So tell us about the situation.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Yes, in the company that I do statistical consulting with, there are a number of different types of studies that come through the pipeline that require different expertise.

PAULA AMEZOLA: What are the actions that you have taken?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: So the actions that I have taken is I have done extensive research to be better versed in being able to handle the data that's coming from the different types of studies that we're working on.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Be more specific, Sandy. How do you handle the data coming in?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Oh.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Do you have an Access database? Do you have an SQL database?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: No. Oh, I see. To apply the appropriate statistical methods for the data that is produced by the different type of trials, all using SAS.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Perfect. So now I know, oh, he knows SAS.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: I better write that down.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yes.

LOU-ANN ROHRBACH: [LAUGHS]

PAULA AMEZOLA: OK. So now we have actions, OK. Can you tell us of a recent result? And it could be, you ran a test or something like that.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Yeah. So one of the big, important, monumental things that happen in pharmaceutical research is when data locks, and the study's done, and all of the results are generated. I am part of that process that produces a report to the sponsors and say, these are the results of your trial.

And then they can take that to the FDA and hopefully get more funding to produce other trials. So part of being part of that process is exciting. I get to see before any of the drugs go out into market, what it looks like from the very beginning.

PAULA AMEZOLA: You didn't tell us the drug name. And sometimes you can't disclose it.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: No, I can't.

PAULA AMEZOLA: But can you tell us, have you done one report, two reports, how many?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Oh, for the type of company that I work with, in the last two years, I've worked on maybe 50 different studies, different reports.

PAULA AMEZOLA: OK.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And maybe 10 different types of medical trials-- different types of outcomes, diabetes, wound healing. Yeah, it's been an extensive experience. Sure.

PAULA AMEZOLA: So I would start with an action verb for the summary of this resume. And I would say something like, wrote more than, or led, or developed more than 50 reports on-- give a few of the conditions-- diabetes, blah, blah, blah-- at this biostatistic company by doing SAS analysis, specifically regression or multivariate analysis.

And so you have to be specific, because otherwise, the recruiter will be like, I don't believe you. I don't believe you can do that. So you have to tell them what you are doing. And for example, I knew that he couldn't tell us the pharmaceutical medication he's working with because that's not disclosed until FDA approves it-- blah, blah, blah-- because of--

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Insider trading.

PAULA AMEZOLA: --insider trading, yes. And thank you, [INAUDIBLE] because I was not going to remember that. I knew that it was something to do with the stock market--

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Yeah.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Insider trading. But he can tell us his expertise.

This is an example of a more public health focused example. And it goes through what's the situation here. In 2014, hospitals were mandated that they needed to have an electronic medical record.

And the actions that this individual took was to research EMRs. They negotiated a bid. They decreased the bid by 25%. And then they proposed the bid to the board.

What were some of the results? Well, the hospital now was complying with the law. And patients and staff felt like the delivery of care had improved.

So what it would look like, you start with an action verb-- saved the hospital 25% off their bid to implement the first EMR by researching-- here are the actions-- researching, negotiating, and resolving. And then we go into you what were the results-- on a system that improved the delivery of care for patients. OK.

And I encourage you to start with situation, action, result. Break down the accomplishment in that way, and then brainstorm how to write it in a sentence.

Now, you first can start by writing two sentences. And then, as you get more familiar with this method, you'll be able to condense it into one sentence. I promise. But it won't happen on the first try.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: I remember as a PhD student, attending some of these workshops and thinking, oh, that looks so easy. I can do that as it comes out.

Now, on this side of things, where these types of things are so much more valuable now, it's work. It's a process. It takes time. It takes for you to keep track of your experiences.

To try to do an all-nighter, like if you were turning in a paper for class, it's a very different experience. Because here you get called on on the BS that you put down. Because the recruiters are very field-specific. And they know exactly what you're talking about or what you don't know what you're talking about.

PAULA AMEZOLA: So that's the trick up my sleeve. I think that in every experience, you should put at least one accomplishment like this in your summary. You should try to write multiple accomplishments like this.

And this tells a story. It helps you see that there's a start, and a middle, and an end. And I encourage you to start communicating your professional documents and utilizing a story instead of just listing things.

There is a reason why phone numbers are separated the way they are. Because humans can't-- there's some geniuses, yes-- but they do 3-3-4 because that's how our brain, they'd remember, three characters, then three characters, then the last one could be four characters.

But our brain thinks in this way. It says, I can only keep track of three things at a time. And then, oh, the last one is four, OK.

Me, for example, I always tell my husband, OK, I'm going to give you the last four digits, and I'm going to remember the first three digits. And that's how we will remember a phone number when I have the redial and I don't have a pen.

But it's difficult for humans to remember a list of numbers, a list of things. And I encourage you to do stories. It's the most important thing you can take from this workshop. And there's a handout here behind the resume checklist that has the example of the SAR method for practicing and do some self-reflection brainstorming on your work that you've done so far.

OK. So by now, we went through the whole LinkedIn sections. Anybody have a question about LinkedIn sections? So now we're going to move into how to use LinkedIn. Anybody have questions about, maybe you're working on your profile and you're like, what do I put on this section? No? Yes? In the back?

SPEAKER 6: Hi. Do you [INAUDIBLE] publications?

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yes. I would say any publications that you are an author in or sometimes at the end of a publication, it says, we have special thanks to-- and then they put your name there-- I would add that one to your publication.

And the reason is, for example, in health communication it's frowned upon if more than four authors are on the article. And so what they do is they put the top four authors, and then they recognize the contributions of the other authors in the thank you section. So if you're part of the thank you section and your name is specifically there, make sure you put it. Sometimes you can also attach the PDF file. Go ahead.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: [INAUDIBLE]

PAULA AMEZOLA: I do want to show you how to get the PDF because I think it's really important. And this is a cool feature that they just added. Oh, I think I'm already here. [CHUCKLES]

OK. So at the very top, under More, you can Save to PDF. And then it's formatted. Oh, wow. That's interesting. So it's a CV.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Yeah.

PAULA AMEZOLA: OK. So here in the Publications there. Here my projects. Experience. So yeah. I highly, highly encourage you to utilize the PDF feature. I loved it. When I saw it, I was like, wow!

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Something that I didn't notice until Paula posted my profile up is some of the experiences-- like for example, my adjunct teaching experience was maybe four years ago-- I still have the same summary from when I wrote it four years ago, instead of updating what that experience is in past tense or maybe what's the value of that experience was and how it connects to what I do now. So it's always is this job of maintaining your own stories.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Absolutely. OK, so we created the LinkedIn. We can download the PDF. And we can start distributing it widely. You can take it to your conferences, career fairs, and start distributing your information.

What else can you do with your LinkedIn profile? Well, you can make connections-- connect with your peers, your faculty, people you're interested in the work they're doing, people that-- let's say if you are interested in working at Genentech. Well, if you're going to working in Genentech, then follow Genentech and see what kind of employees are working at Genentech and send them a message.

When you're posting things, use hashtags. This is new. They didn't have this feature before. Now, whenever Sandy is going on LinkedIn and he is liking an article on clinical trials, he can post something like, it was a good read, #cancerclinicaltrials. And now he is contributing to that knowledge. And he's building his brand as an expert in clinical trials.

We talked briefly about endorsing others. Just like you are going to send your email and request, like, hey, endorse my skills, build your own bank of-- when you give, it's more likely that you'll get in return. So when you get those email requests, do agree.

And let's say they send you a request, and they're like statistician. You're like, well, I don't know you as a statistician. Well, you can agree and then look for a skill that you know them by and endorse them for that skill. So you don't need to endorse others for a skill that you don't know them for. You can select a skill.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And I think connecting with people that's different with your other social media is that sometimes many people add you on Facebook. You add somebody, and then when you see them in public, you're like, oh man, there's that person. Can't see them, right. I can't talk to them.

But with LinkedIn, that's hopefully something that's different, where you want to connect with people that you want to engage with, that you want to have those conversations with. Because it is about your career. It is about your growth. It's very different purposes than social media.

So you'll see if you input your email, that emails that you've used-- for example, here at USC, or any other institution you're part of-- the connections that are associated with that email that might most likely be within your network will start coming up. And so now you have the opportunity to connect with old classmates, with faculty members.

And again, it's the opportunity for you to make those connections matter. Those are the people that you want to interact with, that you want to see, that you want to continue that network event.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yeah. The last thing here is to connect with groups. And I like to connect with groups-- topics that you're interested in. Also, we have some USC groups that you can join.

And I put it here, for example, the USC MPH network. We have a public health one, USC School of Pharmacy Graduate Students Network, the USC School of Pharmacy. And these are just networks that I just quickly searched on LinkedIn and said, what are some possible groups that people can join?

So I encourage you to ask your academic program, hey, do you have any groups that people can join on LinkedIn? Because you do have a network already there of other alumni that are in your field. And I encourage you to join that. And it's mostly to build your brand and to show them that you're interested in this field.

OK, so this is just briefly saying, connections matter. It's important to make as many connections as you can. But quality of connections are important.

And there's a few people in my social media on Facebook and on my LinkedIn that are the same. But the primary connection between those individuals and me is at a professional level. So maybe at one point nobody was using LinkedIn so we connected through Facebook. But I'm now connected through LinkedIn with them too.

And when you send an email to connect with somebody, you do have a limit unless you have the premium. And it's 30 words. I checked it.

But I want to say, LinkedIn changes a lot. It used to be more words. I remember writing like a paragraph to connect with others. And now it's only 30 words. In your email that you send to someone that you want to connect, have an ask.

And be strategic about your connection. This is kind of what Sandy was alluding to, that you want to connect with people that are going to provide a resource to you or that you can provide a resource to later on or currently.

Here's an example of a connection-- like a real email that I sent out to someone. And so, hi, I came across your profile from the Hope event, and very interested in promoting girls to study STEM careers, and noticed that DIY Girls is doing great work around this issue. Would you have time to talk to me about your role as executive director? I'm available to chat over the phone.

So I have an ask. The ask is, hey, can we chat? Can we talk? I'm interested in the work you're doing.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: I think also, as a student right now, it is so much easier to make those types of tasks-- to say, hey, I'm a student. I'm learning. Can you teach me more about what you do? And people, maybe because you just stroke their ego, they think, yeah, definitely.

And that's another opportunity for you to talk about what you do, to maybe get offered a position. A friend recently asked someone for a professional educational interview-- exactly what Paula just did. Tell me more about what you do. And from that conversation, led to a job offer and an interview. And so you never know whether those opportunities might come up.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Here are some potential titles outside of academia. And if you know of any other titles, please let me know. This next slide was very difficult to come together.

And so we have a medical information manager, data scientist, process analyst, entrepreneur. And like I said, it's difficult to find other alternate careers. Can you think of any other?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Just within my field? Yeah. I mean, biostatistician. I think probably the key about a slide like this is that whatever you got your PhD in may not necessarily be what you end up doing as a career or what you end up being as a specialist in if it's different. And that's OK.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yup. So you are part of the USC Trojan family. I highly, highly encourage you-- go ahead-- I highly encourage you to utilize your alumni network.

So right now, you have 10,393 other PhD alumni that you can have access to. And I'm going to show you how. Very simple. Here.

So you do a search-- University of Southern California. You click Alumni. And then you put your search. Anybody want to tell me a field they're in?

SPEAKER 7: Communication.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Communication. So in communication, at some point, some 6,000 people have done a PhD in communication at USC. And it's searching because it's a big database.

Let me show you the screen. And so it's three clicks. Click University of Southern California. Select Alumni. And then you put in the fields that you're interested, and it filters.

So Peer has two filters. And you can clear them. You can also put the year. And basically, it would look like this when it comes out. And you have people all over-- where they live, where they work, and what they do.

There's also a Next feature here that I encourage you. So it has three more columns. And did I put it? No, I didn't. So I encourage you to make sure that you know that there is this other Next. And then when you click Next, it will give you three more columns of specification. OK.

So we've talked about using your connections, use your LinkedIn profile of your alumni connections. And then let's talk about utilizing LinkedIn. This is what I encourage you to do.

So you don't want to build this great profile and then just leave it there. I would say, under Weekly Status, update your status. You can click on something that you like. You read an article. You want to comment on an article.

Also, you can communicate with your network. Maybe you are working on a project. You have a question-- a great way to use your network.

You can find individuals that you're interested in the work they do. This is a great way to find an in in an organization you want to work with in the future.

Through LinkedIn and as part of our USC, we have In-Learning, which are learning workshops. And I encourage you to watch the workshop by a LinkedIn recruiter. His name is Oliver. And if you search on In-Learning, Oliver, LinkedIn recruiter, he will come up. And basically, he talks about what he looks for in LinkedIn profiles.

And then, number 5 is turn on your Career Interest. And what that means is, if this is the second box in your profile, and you click on here and you tell recruiters that you're open for opportunities.

They found out I'm a career coach. And so they want me to click on this so that LinkedIn members can reach out to me and provide free coaching.

And then Salary Insights-- basically, you provide-- I don't know if it's anonymous or confidential-- most likely confidential-- you provide your salary, your title, and the type of work they do. And what they're doing, they're building a big database so that, in the future, people can say, career coach-- how much do they make, and what's the scope of work-- kind of like salary.com, but they want to do it through LinkedIn.

So in the future, you will be able to click on here, and you will see like, oh, I am in the range of most people, what they're making in this career or I'm not in the range. And this is really important for equity, especially when it comes to women. Because we don't get the same salaries as men do. And I think this is so great that LinkedIn is working on this. Any comments?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: No, I think just going back to the purpose of having your LinkedIn profile-- again, it's going to take work. And it's always going to take some updating.

I think something that I kept in touch with, with LinkedIn, is that if I'm not open to new opportunities, then I'm not going to grow. If I think that my employers are going to value me for the next 20 years, I'm probably dreaming. I think if I don't keep up with the different experiences where I can enhance my experiences, my skill set, my tool set, then I'm not growing.

And I think I've seen that with the colleagues that I have. I mean, when you graduate with a PhD, I know I thought, man, I'm probably like [INAUDIBLE] up here because I worked through all this education. But then you're competing with other PhDs, which kind of gives you the same sense that the same competition that's happening with individuals without a PhD is happening with individuals with a PhD. So keep up with all this stuff as the technology changes and as you have an opportunity to promote yourself, do it.

PAULA AMEZOLA: These are my tips for PhD students. The ones that are graduating, the steamboat-- get on the speedboat, I mean. Get on that speedboat.

Write content. It doesn't have to be really long articles that you write. If you have a specialty, you read an article, you can provide commentary-- kind of like editor's notes or something similar like that-- 500 words on your specialty posted on there. And you are now branding who you are, and you're demonstrating your skills.

PhD, the number one skill you must feel comfortable with is writing. You have to learn how to show individuals your work through writing. And so write content so that you demonstrate your value as a PhD student, and in the future, graduate.

Do your research. And what I mean by do your research, is that you really want to make sure that you talk about topics that you're interested in doing in the future or now. So if you have an interest you're interested in the future? Like something hard?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: Oh, yeah. I want to go to university administration.

PAULA AMEZOLA: University administration. And so it will be important for Sandy to build some content around university administration. Also, share your work on LinkedIn. If you have presentations, put them on there. If you have videos, abstracts, put them on there.

And then we talked already about location. Write the location that you want to be working in the future. Anything you want to add?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: [INAUDIBLE]

PAULA AMEZOLA: We're almost done. We have two more slides. Here are the benefits of doing Premium. It does cost $29.99.

Sometimes you will get a little advertisement that says, try Premium for a month. And if you click Yes, really use it. Use those 10 emails. The positive things-- you can reach out to recruiters directly, you can see who is viewing your profile, you can land on the recruiter list.

So let's say they're looking for a PhD who does clinical trials, you will land on their recruiter emails at the top. You can determine who's your competition, also. Like, who is applying to this job? It will tell you.

And I think that one way-- that you can go to USCcampuseditor@gmail. And they're always looking for editors. And if you get selected to be an editor, then you get a one-year Premium for free. So that's another option. Yeah.

So here are the last words. I told you these were the last two slides. I say, be honest of the work that you have done. Do your homework. Basically, when you're posting something about the research you're doing, make sure that you know what you're saying. Don't post anything that's incorrect.

Talk about your value on your LinkedIn profile. Stay on top of your profile on a weekly basis. Post something.

And this goes to what Sandy was mentioning. There's been one job in this semester, actually, that came from LA County USC. It was six figures. It was open for eight hours.

I haven't seen anything like that. But opportunities like that do happen, where you have eight hours to apply and you don't want to miss out on that opportunity.

I mean, there's very few jobs in public health-- that's my expertise-- public health. So I talk a lot about public health. But in public health, there's very few jobs that make more than $100,000, even with a PhD.

And I saw that position, and I was like, oh, OK. So this is great. I posted it. I send it out to everybody. But it opened at 9:00 in the morning, and it closed at 5:00 PM that same day. And it's crazy. So you have to have a resume and cover letter ready to go.

Identify your mentors. Do it as a student. You don't want to leave the university without having mentors. You have invested your time, your money. And what better thing than to make connections with mentors here? Anything to add about mentors?

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: They're usually the ones that will connect you with your next job, at least in my case. And I don't know how legal it is, but oftentimes what happens is, if an institution is looking to fill a position and they know you and they think, man, this person would be great, they have to go through this whole process of posting the job, making the job available for people to apply to.

And then they have to go through the interview process. And then in the end, oh, here it is, this beautiful candidate that we've always had in mind. And it's you.

And those opportunities only come from that investment of you maintaining your contacts, keeping people up to date as to what your skill set is, going to these public events, volunteering. You never know where those things happen, but it happens with your hard work and promoting yourself and keeping open to different opportunities, different possibilities, even a career change.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Yeah. There's actually statistics that say that 80% of the job postings already have somebody in mind. And so it's your job to demonstrate to the hiring manager that you have what it takes, that you prove yourself. And it happens.

So keep that in mind, that even when there's somebody in mind, you might be able to change somebody's mind and say, I'm more qualified, and this is my value. And you can do that by being ready to apply, tracking, and keeping all your projects complete on your profile.

And you have to have the attitude like, they can't refuse me. I am enough for this position. I can do this. I will be a resource for this organization. You have to have that attitude. Because a moment you doubt yourself is a moment that they're not going to look at you. That's my last thought.

SANDY LOPEZ NAJERA: And you have to know your stuff. One of the first experiences I had with LinkedIn was a Google recruiter for data scientists. I was in the middle of writing my dissertation. So all the things like that-- we called it a screening exam-- that exam, all the preparation that we did for that, I was maybe a few years removed from that.

So when I went into the interview, I thought, oh, I got this. No. I didn't have it, because I wasn't up-to-date on what they were asking for, the specific questions that I didn't know how to answer at that time. Then after the interview, I thought, man, I should really prepare better for these things. So it goes with that too, is make sure that you're up-to-date on the things that you're promoting that you do, that you know how to do.

PAULA AMEZOLA: All right. Well, thank you so much, everyone, for staying the full time. We really appreciate it. Thank you for coming to our Soto Building. We appreciate you making the trek over here. And if you want more food, please make sure that you have some more.

And see you at the next-- oh, there is a handout here. Next week there's a fellowship and research for PhD students handout. And it's at main campus. So thank you so much.

[APPLAUSE]

LOU-ANN ROHRBACH: I think some of those events are on this campus.

PAULA AMEZOLA: Oh they are?

LOU-ANN ROHRBACH: Yeah. Some of them are here. Some of them are also for post-docs.

PAULA AMEZOLA: All right. OK. Fantastic.