Life-Changing Lessons From LinkedIn Accelerate-U Conference, San Diego
By: John Hua
Tags: LinkedIn, Conference, Life Lessons, Tech, Careers

After two hours of scenic, reflective coastal driving, I stepped into the event to learn from top Linked[In] insiders about their development journey and what goes on inside their culture. The atmosphere is relaxed, welcoming, and professional. We munched on delicious cheese, pastries, and breakfast goods chatted up peers while waiting for check-ins.

Accelerate-U is described as:

“Accelerate U is our chance to get to know you past the typical 60 seconds in a Career Fair line. We want to know what drives you, where you see envision your career path leading you, and how we can help get you there. “

I walked in excited to meet new people and learn something new while branching out my scope of awareness of all the cool things college students were executing on out in the world. I attended workshops detailing methodologies on showcasing beyond the LinkedIn profile and listened in on stories and habits that contribute towards building a dream career.

LinkedIn Beyond the Profile

LinkedIn is often viewed as as a social media with a space to tack on a digital resume. There’s more to that now with more recent tools. It’s also a platform for accessing publishing, mentorship, and thought leadership. So what are some ways to leverage these tools?

Storytelling. LinkedIn publishing allows for short form feed posting and long form article posting. Short-form writing can be as simple as making a feed post updating your network on where your career is at and what the next moves are. Long-form articles are a great tool to sharing information that lasts longer since they will less likely become buried by more feed posts. Through both means, sharing your life story, goals, aims, and past experiences often lead to opening new opportunities. Check out the article writing publishing platform. Engage your networks and community. There are often always stories of landing new opportunities because recruiters and the perspectives candidates both share an interested in the same book. Both might share an interest in the same cuisine. Don’t be afraid of participation — join a #hashtag movement, reply and start (hopefully ad hominem free) debates within comment chains, like something that caught your eye, thank someone for sharing invaluable advice. Find mentorship directly and indirectly. It might be a little awkward if a student approaches a senior in industry with a blunt “Will you be my mentor?” Sometimes it works, sometimes it won’t. LinkedIn has the career advice and career interest features that are accessible while logged in to help navigate this. Thought leadership. Don’t let your age fool you. Don’t let your great ideas one day end up in a graveyard unexpressed. Don’t let naysayers prevent you from sharing. Thought leadership is the idea of chiming into vital conversations and becoming a stakeholder. It’s excellent to contribute to past, present, and future ideas. It’s like raising your hand in a college seminar classroom, except with the world, to see if it’s a great idea, something that could use revision, or something that’s feasible to be worked on immediately. Who knows, you could potentially find your next start-up team. Valuable team members have this trait.

Designing a Dream Career

Career paths are unique. It’s inefficient to spend time idealizing the careers that others have. Find your own original route. Mimicking, imitating, and trying to live the perfect life someone else has may become a mental block and create a less fulfilling path. Define your balanced work-life ratio. Dividing up work and play at around a 50–50 ratio is an illusion. Everyone can decide their own ratio. I learned this powerful technique. Sort out and prioritize things in life and career that are non-negotiable must haves and wants. How many sick days, vacations, and family time does it leave? What are your values? Achieving a 99–1 ratio for enjoyment and fulfillment to feeling burdened quickly became my ideal after hearing this concept. Bloom where you are planted. Everyone is under constant eyes from others, succeed where you at. It’s tempting and easy to complain about being a bad situation but flipping that mindset into “If I can thrive in this bad situation, imagine what I can do in a better situation?” may help turn a slumber into your pump for success. 1440 in a day. This magic number is the amount of minutes that pass by every single day. If invested wisely, it can determine the difference between having a successful day and reaching new milestones or simply remaining stagnant. Be selective about your influence. Influence happens all the time. Surround yourself with the right mindset to thrive. Work and support others and earn the learning lessons from them. Be with the friend that’s always ambitious with their new ideas, be with the friend always emotional and excited about new innovations. Support the friend going through an emotional wreck and build a new level of resiliency, trust, and rapport together.

Now with these ideas in mind, go empower and accelerate yourself towards your own success.