From education to employment

Could you spare half an hour to take more control of your career in FE?

The Cost Is Half An Hour – Just For People In #FE

Over the coming holiday, could you spare half an hour to take more control of your FE career? If you could, read on.

You and LinkedIn

Take ten minutes only to rework your LinkedIn professional headline. You have 120 characters in total for this task, including spaces. Before you start, remember two things.

  • You headline must encourage people who have found your professional profile on LinkedIn, to read more.
  • You must couch the headline in terms that show how you add value. NOT what you do.

Try using the suggestion below when composing your professional headline.

Your Role + Level + Sector + The Value You deliver PLUS relevant key words (120 characters or less)

Key words are worth thinking about because LinkedIn is a specialist search engine. Want to be found? Think “key words”.

If you can produce something of value to go onto LinkedIn in ten minutes, you are doing well.

You And Your CV

FE and education in general do not make as much use of CVs as many other sectors. When applying for FE jobs people are usually asked to fill in a form and include a personal statement. It is the personal statement you need to focus on.

Take just ten minutes to note just how valuable senior people in your organisation think your work has been in the last six months,

Example:

“I have trained everyone in my team to make more sensible use of IT. We can all now use Excel to show the percentage attendance of individuals in all our classes. This is having a positive impact on my groups and two other senior lecturers want to use my approach next term.”

There is no need to produce a CV. You may never need one. However, it would be a good idea if you wrote some prose about yourself and how you have been an asset to your organisation over recent months. There are lots of instances when you might want to use your words: in your next appraisal, in a job interview or if you have to reapply for your current job etc.

It’s Visual

Here’s how to use those final ten minutes. To begin with, think about how to include graphics, infographics, tables and so on in prose that you are producing. You could be thinking about a CV or you could be thinking about other text you create. Your graphics could show how examination results have improved over the period you have been in post. You could show visually how you have improved attendance and (almost) banished lateness.

There are lots of free tools online that you could use. You could use pie charts, graphs, maps of your achievements and many more. Take your pick. Now spend that final ten minutes looking at the way you can turn things you have written into something visual.

If you have time, there is also video and webinars . . .

And Now?

Take a break over your next holiday. FE is part of your life, not all your life. Do give yourself half an hour to think about the items above and plan well for the coming year.

Have a good break.

Margaret Adams, a former college manager, helps professionals use LinkedIn better. Find more of her work on Amazon.

FE Careers job of the week


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