I live surrounded by young people.  I have hired paid interns for ten years and often speak on campus colleges on networking and why young people shouldn’t try to get a job.

That’s how I got this nice poster designed by Kyle Ready when I spoke at CBU in Riverside.

I am amazed by how many college students in their senior year that are looking to enter the workforce aren’t on LinkedIn.  Young people are natives in the world of technology.  I was an immigrant to their world of technology.

I embraced LinkedIn as an early adopter.  My largest client last year found me on LinkedIn.

College students who aren’t using LinkedIn lose their native status and become LinkedIn immigrants. They look like they aren’t ready for business. They don’t speak my language. And guess what?  I don’t want to hire them because I don’t want to train them on LinkedIn.  I want to teach them other things.

As a solopreneur I want an intern to help me from the get go.  That’s my world today.  And the world that today’s college students will live in when they are 50.  There are numerous articles documenting that in the near future a large proportion of the workforce will be consultants, freelancers, or temp workers.

When I speak to students I advise them to go where you want to be.  If you want to be in business then use the social media channel that businesses use, and that is LinkedIn. The best way to get a job in the field you aspire to is to engage with the people living in that world. LinkedIn provides you with that opportunity.  If you want to work in the future communicate with people that may hire you in the future while you are in the past.  You should start your job-hunting a year before you graduate or sooner.

I recently met a young man with 500 LinkedIn connections.  He was twenty years old and was soon to graduate from UCI.  I wasn’t surprised. Did the 500 plus connections help him graduate early?  Probably not.  I am sure that his attitude of preparing for the future did.

I have always said some of the worst career advice for students comes from people in the Old Normal.  They focus on resume building.  That’s all good, but resumes don’t appear on the Internet, your LinkedIn profile does.

Today resumes should be info graphics or simple websites.

Young people today will have many jobs in the New Normal or create many companies.

The foundation of their success will be their network.  LinkedIn is a simple platform to build it and amplify your voice.

In the Old Normal there used to be simple insights shared that ran like this.  If you saved a dollar a day starting at 21 you would be a multi-millionaire by the age of 65 based on the principle of compounded interest.

In the New Normal if you connect with one person a day starting in college you can be sure of having lots of social currency and an improved chance of financial currency as well.

LinkedIn can help you get there.

You can connect with Hank on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter: @hankblank

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