Episode 2 : Standing Out
This is Gwen Pawlikowski with getting comfortable with LinkedIn. This is episode 2. Let’s talk more about that mindset of individuality that I mentioned in episode 1. It’s super important to see yourself as an individual and to share your ideas as an individual.
You decide what is interesting and has value
This is really empowering to because you decide what’s interesting for you and you decide what has value for you. This is you building your LinkedIn identity. As I said, it’s empowering but it’s also a little bit scary because you have to be kind of assertive for this. So, being assertive means that you are okay with standing out. This might be something that’s kind of new or different for you especially if you’ve come from a different culture but standing out is essential. You have to show your unique self. It’s really important for building a network and it’s really important when you’re looking for jobs. You want to be interesting you want to be memorable. So that means you can’t sound exactly the same as every other engineer or every other programmer. You really really need to stand out from the group.
If you don’t use this mindset, it’s hard to compete
This mindset is critical, especially if you want to move to North America from Asia. People who grow up in North America really start learning this mindset from the time that they are going to school. We’re really trained to talk about our individual selves and values and interests. You need to be able to do this as well. I’m going to talk more about this in episode 3, which is coming up soon. I’m Gwen Pawlikowski and this has been getting comfortable using LinkedIn.