If you know Austin Henline, a senior in the strategy program at the BYU Marriott School of Business, then you know you can’t think about him without having the word “connection” come to mind. During his time as a student, Henline has gathered and shared a wealth of knowledge on ways that college students can optimize their use of LinkedIn to connect with employers and recruiters alike. Beyond linking up with those online, Henline also makes an effort to connect with his fellow BYU Marriott students in the classroom.
Henline first became interested in LinkedIn when he looked for a part-time job to complement his classwork at BYU Marriott. “The reason I became interested in LinkedIn is because, like many students, I realized that the social network was an important tool in helping find a job. After a number of failed job applications, I decided that I needed to spend a little more time figuring out how I could leverage LinkedIn to help me land a job I wanted,” Henline says. “I decided to spend more time learning about the whole platform, and I realized there's not much information available to help college students navigate the social network.”
As Henline dedicated time to learn as much as possible about how to maximize the LinkedIn platform, he also received opportunities to talk about his knowledge. He presented for a variety of BYU Marriott groups such as the pre-business student association and the management consulting association.
Henline was also able to speak about maximizing the power of LinkedIn at a TEDx event at Southern Utah University. “I'd never given a talk for seventeen minutes without any teleprompter, and my talk was 100 percent memorized,” he says. “Being passionate about what I was talking about definitely helped me to keep my mindset cool while talking on stage.”
Students and presentation viewers weren’t the only groups to take notice of Henline’s knowledge of LinkedIn. LinkedIn itself welcomed Henline on for a summer 2020 internship where he worked in global sales and continued learning about the company. “I had set a goal a year prior that I wanted to land an internship at LinkedIn,” he says. “For an entire year, I worked as hard as I could and networked with as many people as I could. I got to see the transition from a long-shot goal that I never thought could happen to actually having that dream become a reality.”
Even though Henline has found a passion for LinkedIn and the job search process, he didn’t always know that he wanted to study business strategy. Once Henline realized that business would make good use of his interpersonal skills, he reached out to BYU Marriott graduates to help him decide which program to study. “I hopped on a lot of phone calls with BYU Marriott alumni and asked them about their experiences with the strategy program. From those talks, I concluded that strategy would be a fit for me and help set me up with problem-solving skills that would be good for a career in business”
As he’s progressed through the strategy program, Henline has also learned the value of connecting with other students in the classroom. “Part of what I have learned from my time at BYU Marriott is the importance of creating relationships with the people in my classes,” he says. “The people I’m meeting and studying with right now are going to be the leaders of businesses tomorrow.”
Henline recently accepted a full-time offer to work as a business development associate for Salesforce, a customer relationship management platform. As he plans for his future career, he hopes to give back by teaching other college students about LinkedIn and empowering them in their job search. “I would love to help close the gap between college students and entry-level roles. I've worked with and talked with hundreds of students to help them in the job search, and the gap between internship experience and landing your dream role out of college is big,” he says. “I’m excited to continue working with college students and help them to learn how to bridge that gap and land the jobs of their dreams.”
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Writer: Kenna Pierce
