GU alum and networking professional encourages LinkedIn profiles

Published: June 08, 2022

As a roomful of Greenville University students recently contemplated their working career after graduation or wondered how to land a meaningful summer internship, Kelli (Stephens ’86) Page had a singular piece of advice: You must have a presence on LinkedIn.

“If you’re looking for a job, you need to be on LinkedIn,” said Page, a GU alum, mother of a current student, and certified profile developer for LinkedIn. “It is the number one job networking site in the world. It’s where employers are looking, and you need to be there.”

And even though she’s an employee of LinkedIn, Page backed her endorsement of the company with plenty of facts.

“There are more than 750 million users on LinkedIn,” she said, “and you want to be swimming in that pool. It’s important to have a presence there because more than 55 million companies have LinkedIn pages.”

She added that 84% of companies and 94% of recruiters use LinkedIn when searching for candidates to fill openings.

Invited to campus through Community Circles program

Page, the daughter of GU President Emeritus W. Richard Stephens, currently lives in Lapeer, Michigan. She was invited back to campus this spring through a program called Community Circles, a collaborative effort between the University’s Office of Career Services and Office of Alumni Relations. The program connects students with alumni who can help prepare them for careers by providing mentoring, internship opportunities, job shadowing, job leads, and networking.

Dewayne Neeley, ’98, GU’s director of alumni relations, said Community Circles  is a great way for alumni to support students as they prepare to enter the workforce. “GU alumni significantly impact many professional areas, and now they can combine their expertise, professional networks, and eye for industry needs with their love for GU by helping today’s students (tomorrow’s alumni) succeed.”

For Page, her expertise with LinkedIn made it natural for her to participate in the Community Circles program to show how the network can help them land a job. Though she acknowledged that it’s still necessary for graduates to create a resume, she stressed that LinkedIn can help personalize and drive viewers to that document.

“With a resume, you have about six seconds to make an impression before the reader moves on,” she said. “By having an effective LinkedIn account, you can craft your story