Social Media for Job Seekers
How to use social media to your advantage while looking for your next job
By Torin Ellis
September 5, 2018
With over 2.5billion users in the world and growing, social media remains a major force in how we move through everyday life. And with the highest level of user adoption here in North America, it only makes sense that social media has found its way into the average job search.
Sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, audio applications like SoundCloud, video properties like YouTube and Vimeo, blog platforms like Medium, and more are being leveraged in millions of searches every day. They are seen by millions of people, and used in many different ways to connect, learn, and get yourself and your story out there.
However, the stats mean nothing if you’re not in a position to participate and benefit. Let’s look at a quick fix to get you up to speed:
1. Build on the basics — start where it makes the MOST sense
While the various platforms each do something different, they all operate with the same premise in mind, which is to readily connect you to the information, person and/or thing you are looking for. The follow buttons, hearts, and hashtags facilitate “connecting” and set you in motion. For example, with SoundCloud the ‘thing’ you are looking to connect on is music. With LinkedIn, however, the ‘thing’ is your professional network.
Goal: create a LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. With a job search specifically, the most important social media profile you can create is your LinkedIn. Start there!
2. Establish a persona/profile — one that is employer friendly
Don’t play. Leave the nicknames for another profile. When conducting a job search, employers prefer to know who they are engaging. I’d rather be boring and secure than cool and broke.
Goal: Use your first and last name or initial, and a professional Gmail/Yahoo address, e.g. TylerSmith@gmail.com
3. You can do research too!
Aside from having your own social media profiles, you can also use social media to learn about a company, their culture, their dress code, new projects they are working on, and events they are hosting. Facebook and LinkedIn are great for this. Twitter on the other hand is quick for finding industry data and up-to-date news. Instagram is all pictures behind the scenes, which can give you a great sense of company culture. All of these sites are used by a company or business to influence your attraction to the company. Do your homework.
Goal: Use and explore at least three of the above sites when researching a company.
4. Follow company pages, groups, and specific hashtags — and share
Dig around, watch videos, listen to podcasts from employees and leaders to better understand what makes them successful,what the company is focused on, or competition in the marketplace. Social media is an incredible tool in preparing you for the networking and interview conversations, if used correctly.
Goal: Have fun, learn, and win.
There are plenty more tips, but this is a good start. If you want to see how it works in action, follow me on one of the mentioned platforms. I am present, engage consistently, not too much or too little — just right. For me. You may prefer to be more active and that’s okay. What you’ll notice is that I show a bit of personality while at the same time remaining professional.
Don’t be afraid or hesitant of the various mediums. Communication is important as I constantly remind you. Jump in and watch others operate and you’ll get the hang of how to use these mostly FREE tools to your advantage. And if this and other efforts still leave you confused, you can always hop on YouTube and find a video that will assist.
Next month I’m tackling the change of season and important considerations between this October and April of 2019. Tag a friend, share the article — matter of fact, set up your Twitter account and share it with the world.
Diversity Maverick and Strategist // SiriusXM Contributor // Published Author of Rip The Resume — Creative, high voltage, ready to pursue results.
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