Jade Walters is Creating Opportunities for Students of Color on LinkedIn, Here’s How [+ Pro Tips for Gen Z]
By juthompson@hubspot.com (Justina Thompson)
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.
Jade Walters is, easily, the Queen of Gen Z LinkedIn. And if you want to know why, taking a glance at the array of content on her early career resource platform, The Ninth Semester (also accessible through Instagram, TikTok, Apple Podcasts, and LinkedIn), will corroborate this claim.
Jade has spent the last year independently building up her LinkedIn following, making early career opportunities more visible for young professionals, specifically first generation students of color.
I had the honor and privilege of chatting (and gabbing, really) with her about pretty much everything LinkedIn-related, from developing the Ninth Semester to how Gen Z students of color can easily utilize LinkedIn as their secret weapon for securing jobs and connections.
In this article, I’ll share my takeaways from Jade’s playbook and suggestions for how emerging professionals can overcome the daunting landscapes of internships, networking, and rejection.
Let’s get into it.
Table of Contents:
How Jade Walters Helps Gen Z Get Hired
“I wanted a seat at the table… and no one would give me a seat, so I created my own table.”
When Jade and I hopped on Zoom for our conversation, one of the first things she said was that “helping Gen Z get hired” has always been the core of her mission, vision, and brand as an early career and recruitment specialist.
Of course, this authentic and steadfast commitment comes from adversities she’s faced — and overcome — all on her own.
Like much of Gen Z, Jade started on an untraditional, non-linear career path. She got her Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University in Maternal and Child Health, but once her undergrad concluded, she found herself experiencing a career pivot.
Eventually, that limbo period led to an unexpected union between personal reflections she’d already been sharing (via her personal blog, Love, Jade Carson) and her affinity for early career recruiting.
Although Jade graduated a few years ago, much of Gen Z’s attitudes around jobs, post-grad life, and overcoming the competitive job market, has not changed. If anything, anxieties have heightened, making Gen Z’s race to the finish line even more frenzied.
According to the Class of 2025 Big Dreams, Bigger Challenges Report from Handshake, 63% of upcoming graduates revealed that competition for employment contributes to feelings of pessimism.
Additionally, of students who are pessimistic about starting their careers, 54% cite concerns about job …read more
Source:: HubSpot Blog
