This past October the Business Management Department held their first digital forum with a relevant topic to our student body; LinkedIn and Networking. They hosted presenter and alumni Diego Beas a Regional Performance Associate from Dale Carnegie Training of Long Island, he communicated the importance of networking. While our own Cheryl Strategos a Career Counselor from the Nexus Center expressed the value of having a presence on LinkedIn.


The forum opened with Diego. He started his presentation with an interactive activity to help the student be heard and remembered in new interactions. Diego called this strategy the “pause-part-punch”. First he expressed, you say hello to the individual your meeting with then, state your first name, hold for a pause, then assert your last name with a punch. 


We had two volunteers practice this strategy for our attendees. This strategy Diego describes helps you make your presence know and allow for your name to resonate with the person your meeting. For example, saying “Hello my name is” taking a pause, then vocalizing “Lilly”, leaving a part between her first name and last name, then using the punch to annunciate the last name “Jonson”. This really grabbed the attention of our participants and Diego went on to inform them about how a great first impression can help set up a new professional connection for success.


Cheryl moved forward with the forum and gave us an inside look into Linkedin. She described the basic page layout on LinkedIn and what information is important to include. Completely filling out your personal contact information, recent experiences, and skills will help employers find your page and make it look more appealing once they are there. Cheryl also demonstrated strategies to find Farmingdale Alumni through our University’s Linkedin page. She used this strategy to see where students with similar degrees landed after FSC. This allowed the students to envision different career paths they can seek out after graduation. 


While the student closely followed, Cheryl gave a few tips to help grow your digital network on LinkedIn. While sending off a digital connection invitation may seem intimidating she communicated the best practices to be welcoming while staying professional when writing a connection note. 


This forum was extremely informational and uplifting for our students. We look forward to hosting Diego and Cheryl in workshops to come. If you have any questions on resume building or how to build a professional digital presence, reach out to the Nexus Center at nexuscenter@farmingdale.edu for more information.