LinkedIn is a very popular professional networking site. Almost every professional person is on LinkedIn, and so are the recruiters! For those, who have certain working experience, LinkedIn is pretty useful. Few students also using this service, but are very rarely active. While going through such a dead profile, I just thought how the students – especially the CS students can make use of this service to build their own resume, and to turn it into your complete timeline later. Lets see, as a CS student, how you can use LinkedIn to make most out of it.

Summary

If you think you have thorough understanding of some subject(s), for example, java programming, DBMS, software engineering practices, design patterns etc., mention it under this section. You can also mention your favorite subject or work area, like system programming, database administration etc. This way, any visitor to your profile will come to know your potential, favorite subject, and can think about where you can be a good match.

Education

Mention all the courses you took – Include your graduation, post-graduation, any other certificate courses you took. Describe your project work, but keep the description short and sweet. The text should be short, but enough to give clear idea of what role you played in the project and what exactly you did to accomplish it.

If you participated in any project or presentation competition, list those activities.

Experience

If you have done any summer job in corresponding field, list it! That can certainly be a plus point for you.

Recommendations

During your academics if you have ever done project(s) under guidance of any industrial person, request them to recommend you! If they were really happy with your work, they would write a really good recommendation for you!!

Additional Information

If you run any blog, particularly related to your field of education, do not forget to list it here. Though not all visitors will tend to visit your link, but few of them may read it. If your blog is speaking loudly about your interest and your learnings and findings, the reader may get fascinated. Who knows what can help you out at which instance of time?!

Also list out your interests. One important point I would like to tell you here is, be diplomatic while listing your interests. I have seen many resumes and LinkedIn profiles which say “interested in drawing”, “likes reading” etc. but failing to turn them into a plus point. If you are really interested in drawings, then instead of merely listing it, why not to make it say like “interest in drawing leads me to explain the concepts via diagrams” OR if you are a reading freak, why not to make it read like “reads a lot, including technical white papers and related documents” ?

Include your contact details! Include your mobile number (if you have any); if you have regular Internet access include your mail ID and some IM (Google Talk/Yahoo messenger/Skype etc.), so that if your profile sounds interesting to some recruiter, (s)he can contact you directly.

There is one more useful thing available with LinkedIn – export profile as a PDF. You can quickly convert the LinkedIn profile into a PDF document, which you can send quickly via email as your resume. Perhaps, you might like to edit it slightly, especially the LinkedIn logo

Any other suggestions? Write them in comments! That will be really great!!

Listening is really underrated, most of the times. Try to hear what the client is saying. Ask them for details, thoughts on design, copy, layout, and then ask for more! Listen to what they say. Sometimes, listening between the lines is necessary too!

Then, after you listen completely, communicate to the client. Keep them updated through the process. Reply to emails as quickly as possible. Send them progress updates. Then, after you launch their site/write their piece, contact them a week or so later to touch the base and see if they need anything else.

Clients love this.

Windows is still the most popular operating system. If you are a geek, and eventually get into a situation where someone forgets his password you can use Ophcrack. It is a free Windows password cracker based on rainbow tables. It solves passwords up to 14 characters in length. The most amazing fact about this software is, it takes just around 10 seconds to solve the password! Moreover, you need not have any technical expertize.

Simply download the Ophcrack ISO image and burn it into a CD. You can also load it onto an USB drive using UNetbootin. Insert this CD into machine to which you want to gain access to, then press and hold the power button down until the machine shuts down. Turn ON the computer again, and enter BIOS. Change the boot sequence to CD before HDD, save the change and exit.

The computer will restart again, and Ophcrack will get loaded. Now just relax and sit back! This software will do whatever it is required to do. Write down the password it tell you. That’s it! Remove the CD and reboot again. Use the given password to login.

1. Give your visitors the information they are looking for.

Provide high quality contents on your website – especially the home page. If your page(s) really contain useful information, the readers will like to link to you. For creating helpful, information-rich website, describe each of your topics neatly and accurately. Think about the words people would type to search for your site.

2. Make sure other sites link to yours.

Links really help Google crawler to find your site. They provide a visibility to your site. Google have its own, special algorithm to “value” your site. A link from page A to page B is considered as a “vote by A to B”. If page A is really a higher valued page, you ultimately get a good value from Google’s point of view.

3. Google algorithms can distinguish between natural and unnatural links.

Natural links to your site develop a dynamic nature of web when other sites find your contents useful/valuable and think it would be helpful for their readers (For example, links provided in blog posts). Unnatural links are just put there specifically to “make” your site look popular. Google can differentiate between these two, and only the natural links are considered.

4. Make your site easily accessible.

Build your site with some good logical links structure. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link. Use a text browser, such as Lynx, to examine your site. Most crawlers will “see” your site as Lynx do. If features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, Flash etc keep you from seeing your entire site in text browser, then it will also keep Google and other crawlers from seeing your site.

5. Things you should avoid.

Do not fill your pages with some list of “keywords” in any attempt to put “crawler only” pages. If your site contains pages, links or text contents you wish your visitors should not see, Google considers such links and pages deceptive and it may ignore your site.

Avail some search engine optimization service. But be careful while choosing one! Many such services claim to “guarantee” top position in Google results, and they do so by means of either improving your contents and flow, or by employing some deceptive strategy attempting to fool Google. But if your domain is affiliated with such any service, Google may ban you from their index.

Do not use images to display important names, contents or links. Google’s crawler cannot recognize text contained in graphics. Use ALT attribute if main names or contents on your pages cannot be formatted in simple HTML.