There’s much more to social media than pictures of your friends, cats and funny hashtags. Many employers and recruiters today use social media to attract and find the right candidates for job opportunities — meaning that you should be using social media as part of your job search strategy too.
When you hear social media, you might immediately think of Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, but social media can refer to any online platform you might use to communicate or network with other people.
Social media lets your skills and personality stand out
With the competitive market today, job seekers should use every tool available to get noticed by prospective employers. Social media has become an essential platform to advertise your skills, your personality, connect with likeminded people, and find job opportunities.
Normally, your resume will only be seen by employers and recruiters when you apply for a job opening. The advantage of social media is that you can increase the visibility of your professional experience and allow recruiters to come to you instead. To help you take full advantage of social media to find a job, here are our 5 tips.
- Set up a strong profile on LinkedIn
If you want to create a strong online profile that will be highly visible to recruiters, you should start with LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social media platform that makes it easy for you to showcase your professional history and connect with people in the industry.
To start with, you should craft a professional summary that states your objectives and highlights your area of expertise. You should then list your professional experience including company name and your title, your responsibilities, and achievements, followed by your education.
Once your profile is complete, you should build your network by connecting with people who you know or have previously worked with. From there, you should connect with people in your industry and organisations you’re interested in working for. It’s important to be proactive and connect with people, as it increases the likelihood of a recruiter coming across your profile.
- Create an online portfolio
Don’t stop at LinkedIn. If you want to work in a creative role for instance — such as photography, video production, copywriting, music, or design — it can be effective to create a professional blog, portfolio website, Twitter or Instagram to showcase your work.
The fantastic thing about having an online portfolio, particularly if you have a disability, injury or illness, is that you can showcase your skills, capabilities, and your strengths without bias, helping you impress recruiters solely through your work.
To find out how you can use Instagram to create a portfolio to attract prospective employers, check out this article from Shutterstock.
- Clean up your personal social media account or set it to private
Any public information you have on your social media account can and will affect a recruiter’s impression of you. According to a CareerBuilder survey, it found that 70% of recruiters and hiring managers use social media to screen any potential candidates. To avoid being discriminated against, it can be helpful to set your social media accounts to private.
For more public social media platforms such as Twitter, it can be beneficial to remove any content that can impact a recruiter’s decision to not hire you.
These could include inappropriate images, offensive comments, comments about a previous employer, or even politically divisive statements.
- Search for jobs on LinkedIn and Twitter
Instead of searching only on job boards, LinkedIn and Twitter can be great additions to your job search, and you should make a habit of using these platforms. Many recruiters have job opportunities available in the LinkedIn Jobs section, and lets you easily apply with your profile.
On Twitter, companies often tweet out job opportunities which can be found using hashtags. Examples of hashtags you should search for are #hiring, #nowhiring, #jobs, or location and industry specific search terms like “engineering”, “jobs” and “Wollongong”.
- Research employers and organisations before applying
Hiring managers and recruiters use social media to screen prospective candidates, so it makes sense that you do the same. When you come across a job ad that you wish to apply for, you should research about the organisation, the hiring manager or CEO on LinkedIn, Twitter, and any social media profile you can find.
This can give you an insight into the company, their culture, and their personality so you can customize your job application to their preferences.
Do you need help getting started?
Despite the benefits of using social media to attract recruiters and find a job, not everyone is tech savvy.
If you need personalised, one-on-one support to help you get started on your job search, get in touch with our friendly team today.
