Patricia Oei, Law, second year

What did you find challenging about building up your LinkedIn profile and completing the challenge activities?

Before this challenge, I had set up my LinkedIn profile already, but it was not until lockdown when I realised how much I could learn from LinkedIn and use it to my greatest advantage. It was simple and easy to connect with like-minded peers and even get to know what they are doing to develop legal skills and knowledge through their LinkedIn feed and profile. From my connections, I was able to attend many webinars, virtual internships, free useful courses with creditable certificates to add to my CV and meeting new people from my connections’ network. I was surprised with how much you can do on LinkedIn.  I definitely took it for granted by not giving it more attention from the start.

At the start of this activity, I found presenting myself and giving a good first impression a challenge when trying to communicate and network with new people. This was because I did not know where to begin the conversation. However, the more messages and short notes I sent around to people, the easier it became to find topic starters.  All I did was look for common ground and push off from there. Also, I found as I messaged more people the automatic reply back selection that LinkedIn offers as a tool is very useful in getting the conversation flowing and helping you in how to reply back to a certain message.

Furthermore, I learned to accept that people may be busy which is understandable so they might not be able to reply back to every single message. I see this as a future challenge to distinguish myself from the crowd and be eye-catching to future employers. However, one thing that I am surprised about is the amount of responses and willingness from like-minded people to talk to you or invite you for a phone call about their personal experience. Previously, I believed that doing so would make me look too pushy or I would never get a response as some are high-profiled professionals. Therefore, this has definitely opened my mind to many different possibilities and opportunities that I will take forward in my legal career. I will continue to be highly active and update my profile as I gain more experiences.

How did LinkedIn help you with your career research/networking/decision-making/job hunt?

Finding out what Royal Holloway’s Alumni were up to in their careers allowed me to start off the conversation with ease. Our common ground made me more confident in being open to contacting them. Getting to know other people’s career paths has helped with my decision making and future career options.

Also, I completed an informational interview with a connection that found me on a professional group. I was able to develop my people’s skills, collect valuable insights from an industry that I was not strong in and learnt new information about technology and law which will definitely be useful as this area continues to grow in the future. From this exercise, I understand Linkedin is the key to job hunts and research on employers which I will use as a tool to prepare for interviews.

Through LinkedIn, I have found out more from my future employers and how they communicate with their network. For example, I found that a handful of law firms were more active than others, such as sharing their articles, regularly posting updates and showing support for their employees. I found this useful as it shows the type of employer they are and how they stand out.  Overall, my research skills and knowledge has expanded and will continue to do so.

Furthermore, I was able develop myself and as a result have a strong profile and set employability skills. For example, several of my connections were with Bright Network’s Internship Experience which I hadn’t heard about before and I managed to land a place before the deadline closed. This was extremely helpful for me to land a virtual internship during this period and I managed to source with the help of LinkedIn. I plan to continue my search for more interesting events which will increase my employability skills, all thanks to Linkedin!