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
- How to Find Early Career Opportunities Through LinkedIn
- How to Use LinkedIn for Networking and Internship/Job Hunting
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) 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 security and 45% cite concerns about insufficient benefits and compensation.
Source: Handshake
The Big Dreams, Bigger Challenges Report also revealed that going to college is (shockingly) not enough to stand out in today’s job market; students must go above and beyond to get noticed by the right employer.
62% of students are working part-time during their senior year and 61% are pursuing an internship during it, too.
Source: Handshake
Nevertheless, Walters has seen the impact of all of this data with her own eyes, specifically via her LinkedIn audience which has a (very calm) 90,000 followers. “I realized there weren’t a lot of resources for early career professionals,” she told me.
When Jade started out, she was applying to roles related to recruitment, but because of her educational and professional background, did not hear back about most of those roles.
She eventually carved her own lane in this space and has now paved the way for other early career content creators (e.g., Taylor Falls, Morgan Young) to do the same.
“I wanted to be the solution for a problem that I was having. I wanted to help others that were in my same shoes not have to struggle the way that I did,” she said.
Now, Jade dedicates most of her LinkedIn presence to sharing ways that Gen Z, specifically young professionals of color, can secure internships, grow their skill sets, and eventually get hired full-time.
How to Find Early Career Opportunities Through LinkedIn
When I asked Jade about the best ways for Gen Z to discover and acquire internships, externships, jobs, and networking opportunities, she put her answer plainly:
“I was that person who just used to log into LinkedIn to update my job experiences, talk about new accomplishments. But within the last year, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of value in the [additional] content that people share [outside of just those things].”
These days, if you want to make the most of LinkedIn, per Jade’s advice, you’ve got to do more than just post a new job update and keep your work experiences fresh.
Here are a few of Jade’s recommendations for growing a strong community on LinkedIn:
1. Post as much as you scroll.
Jade says that you should post on LinkedIn just as often as you scroll through your feed.
“You can no longer just show up and post about your new job. You need to spend at least 15 minutes scrolling through, seeing what people are talking about, and catching up with industry facts and feelings,” she affirmed.
And she’s right. When Jade mentioned this, I was quickly reminded of my own progression on LinkedIn. When I first started taking the platform more seriously, I was simply sharing things that I thought should live on LinkedIn.
If I got a new internship? I’d post about it. If I completed a large-scale project for my college org? I was drafting an announcement as if it were a press release. It all made sense… until I saw another side of LinkedIn (aka “cool LinkedIn”).
You see, on cool LinkedIn, young people like me were talking about viral trends and sharing their one-of-a-kind perspectives on their internship experiences and all things Gen Z.
When I found this out, I was not only astounded but motivated to start doing the same. Even more so, seeing Jade’s content inspired me to start platforming my own gospel.
Now, I’m gradually working towards building a following based on creating content that speaks to all of me: my passions, humor, even what I’ve learned thus far in my (very early) career.
So, if you’re looking for ways to keep your timeline fresh and connections strong on LinkedIn, be sure to interact and engage with the app in a meaningful way. What you put in is what you get out.
Pro tip: Translating your experiences and/or advice into various kinds of content creation — whether that be short-form video content or social media design – will definitely catch eyes on LinkedIn. You just need to find your personal branding “sweet spot” and run with it. Since starting my own journey, this has looked like offering '#jeanius' advice to my followers.
2. Take advantage of self-paced education resources.
When it comes to filling in the gaps of experience or getting free learning, Jade suggests to get it in where you can fit it in.
“When I wanted to learn about early career and university recruiting, LinkedIn Learning was one of the first places I went. I was like, ‘Let me learn some realistic stuff, like, vetted by professionals.’”
Also, LinkedIn Learning is just a starting point. I cannot stress how resourceful companies like Extern and Parker Dewey are, especially for young Black/Brown professionals and students of color seeking to build up robust, real-world work experience.
Both Extern and Parker Dewey offer free access to paid short-term programs and micro-internship opportunities for college students across the country, for those enrolled in four-year institutions, community colleges, even historically Black colleges/universities (HBCUs).
All you have to do is ensure that you meet a program’s criteria and apply.
Pro tip: HubSpot is partnered with Parker Dewey for its very own AI Bootcamp Program and LinkedIn Ambassador Program. As a Caribbean-American first-generation college graduate, this program (and anything offered through Parker Dewey) was extremely instrumental in helping me secure multiple internships and, eventually, my first full-time job.
3. Don’t be afraid to niche down, folks.
“I have mixed feelings and emotions about the different softwares coming up where you can send, like, 200 applications in one click. There’s always this question about whether or not it's a numbers game, and I do agree, it is a numbers game when it comes to applying for jobs but … it also needs to be strategic,” Jade says.
When applying for jobs, internships, or any sort of early career role, Jade recommends that folks figure out two things: exactly what opportunities they’re looking for and what opportunities suit their current background.
She told me: “For example, sometimes people just apply to things [that have ‘marketing’ in title]. They’re applying to campus marketer roles, email marketer roles, influencer marketing roles… but their resumes don’t reflect that.”
Jade says that looking for the right job/internship is simply like going to a restaurant: “You don’t just go like, ‘I want a burger.’ You pick something from the menu. You have to be intentional. So, let’s say you want to work in marketing. Okay. But what type of marketing? Influencer marketing? Copywriting? Social strategy? Once you narrow it down, you have a dream wish list.”
How to Use LinkedIn for Networking and Internship/Job Hunting
At the end of our conversation, Jade and I got into a rich discussion about the ways in which young people like me can use LinkedIn exclusively for networking and internship/job-hunting purposes.
As the job market gets heated and applicant tracking systems (ATS) become increasingly more difficult to surpass, Gen Z can’t just apply to their dream roles and hope for the best. Instead, Gen Z must now lean on alternative techniques to succeed, both in their hunt for employment and in interviews.
Thankfully, Jade knows exactly what to do, and here’s what she proposes (along with a small sprinkle of my own guidance):
1. LinkedIn has tons of free game for Gen Z.
If you’re wondering if it’s okay for you to start randomly connecting with people on LinkedIn, the answer is yes. Yes. Yes. In fact, this casual approach to LinkedIn can be incredibly fruitful.
“One of the biggest benefits of LinkedIn is that you can just, like, connect with people you don’t know or people that you want to work with. And it’s okay. Like, it’s normal,” Jade urged.
“Nine times out of ten, like, someone will probably accept your invitation to connect, and you could follow from their journey. And if they have the time, you can have a coffee chat. LinkedIn is a place where you could be connected with, like, the VP of Marketing at your dream company. And it’s not like you met them in an exclusive place… you met them on LinkedIn.”
In my own experience (as a former student of color turned young Black professional), Jade’s advice has worked out pretty well.
In the last three months alone, I’ve set-up several coffee chats — some with folks who work at companies I’ve always wanted to know more about, others with fellow young people of color who’ve found me and wanted to simply learn about my journey — and those conversations have been some of the most meaningful discussions I’ve had the pleasure of having.
However, they never would’ve if I wasn’t open to using LinkedIn for its sole purpose: community building.
At the end of the day, LinkedIn is a social networking platform, so don’t hesitate to use it for what it was made for.
2. Lean on your tribe while you need them.
When in doubt about your future job prospects, Jade reinforced that one of the best ways to get early access to internships or full-time role opportunities is, without fail, to talk to your people (especially your LinkedIn friends and followers).
“Befriend your professors, connect with them. Speak to your community about what you're looking for. That’s one of the best ways [to hear about opportunities before they go live online],” she said.
You may not know it now but folks you already know – professors, former managers, even faculty/administrators at your university – could have those coveted, close-knit connections to companies or leadership that you may have been looking to get in touch with for a while.
It’s all about maintaining your relationship with that person and, of course, how you approach the conversation you have.
3. Follow recruiters and early career content creators.
Finally, what better way to know what’s tea about job opportunities than to reach out to the very people who have a say in who gets hired?
Jade and I agree that connecting with recruiters on LinkedIn, especially those that specialize in early career talent acquisition, is the easiest way to go when searching for your next professional endeavor.
By reaching out to recruiters, you're essentially tapping into a hidden job market.
They can truly provide you with valuable information about companies, industries, and specific roles that might be a good fit for you.
When you do reach out, be sure to introduce yourself, inquire about the specific department you’re looking into, and ask for personalized guidance on your job search, from resume writing and interview preparation to networking strategies.
The Future of Gen Z Success Starts with LinkedIn
Clearly, LinkedIn has emerged as a powerful tool for Gen Z professionals, especially young professionals of color.
By embracing the scary unknown of the LinkedIn sphere and utilizing it strategically, Gen Z professionals, particularly students of color seeking an entryway into their next career opportunity, can unlock a world of possibilities and uniquely position themselves for success.
And just as Jade has so eloquently demonstrated, with determination, creativity, and a willingness to adapt, even the most unconventional career paths can lead to extraordinary outcomes.
