Are you a graduate student or professional in your first year or two in the field? Is this your first WCPA Conference?
If so, you can sign up to get a WCPA Conference Mentor – someone who will show you the ropes and help you navigate the conference!
Stay tuned to this page for more information. To sign up, follow this link: Conference Mentee Survey Form
Are you a WCPA Conference pro? Someone who has been sailing the seas and would like to share your wisdom?
If so, you can sign up to be a WCPA Conference Mentor – you will be matched with a graduate student or new professional who could benefit from your experience.
Go to the Professional Development Commission page (http://mywcpa.org/commissions/pd/) to learn more and sign up.

You may already be sick of hearing me go on and on about LinkedIn after the last WCPA Newsletter (http://www.mywcpa.org/files/WCPA_newsletter_winter09.pdf -  on page 10), but here I go again. Not writing this time, just posting a link and explaining it. Find it in the links section. It is about using social media for networking in general, I just recommend LinkedIn above the other options.

Ok, I guess I’m writing a little. For most of the students I work with, and a lot of the professionals I communicate with, getting on LinkedIn is easy. It’s figuring out what to do once you are on that is hard! I hear you.

Here are my quick top-three tips for using LinkedIn:

1. Profile. Make sure it is very full and complete. Make it public (you should not have anything to hide on LinkedIn). Ask some colleagues to recommend you.

2. Groups. Join some. Then get active with them!! Read discussion boards, comment on posts, start posts of your own.

3. Contacts. Search for colleagues, invite them to join LinkedIn if they aren’t already on it. Really – it will make you look cool. At least professional and into networking – which is the epitome of cool in my world. It’s not a popularity contest so make sure you go for quality over quantity.

What else? What else have you done on LinkedIn that has been helpful? What tips do you want to share? How about questions?

Hi all! One of the benefits of the commissions is that you have someone (that would be me) to bring your issues to the board and to coordinate programming that relates to what you are most interested in.

With that in mind, is there anything (related to being a graduate student or new professional) that you would like to learn about at the conference coming up in October? Maybe you want resume tips, job search strategies, networking advice, tips from seasoned professionals… just for example.

Well, just let me know and I will see what I can do to help!

Hoping to hear from you,

Sheila Keaton (WCPA Commission Chair for Graduate and New Professionals)