JOB HUNTING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

The employment landscape has significantly changed by the advent of growing technology and in recent times by the advent of social media. Despite the fact that the social media is the rave of the moment, many individuals and businesses are actually struggling to identify a return on investment for using social media to job-hunt (as job seekers) or to support their recruiting efforts (as recruiters or employers).

According to a recent Harvard Business Review publication “People may go online to goof off but before long, they talk shop. Social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Quora, and even Pinterest can be valuable job-hunting tools.”What’s more, most job seekers still are not sure how to leverage social media in their job search.

For many job seekers, the Internet presents two very different worlds. One consists of hanging out with friends via social networking, and the other focuses on the seriousness of a job search.Having the worlds collide could result in the playful social media environment posing problems for a job search since there is a growing number of recruiters and employers that now conduct online research to determine a candidate’s eligibility.

Job seekers need to embrace the job-hunting side of social media and learn how to harness them to their benefit. Shared below are a few useful job search tips to using social media to you advantage as a job seeker:

Start by knowing the purpose for each social networks

If the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable. As a job seeker, you have to know that each social network has its purpose and a job seeker must understand each social networks in order to use it as a job search advantage. Let’s pick the top three job related social network briefly:

LinkedIn: is the world’s largest professional social network. If you are a professional and you want to be known for what you are good at, then you need a LinkedIn profile today. Being on LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to access over 250 million professionals who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and job opportunities. Recruiters and employers spend most of their time on LinkedIn sourcing for talents. Why not have a LinkedIn profile so you can be found easily!

Facebook: Facebook is unarguably the world’s largest social networking site today. Facebook is really the definition of social as you can share ‘almost’ everything on it. I know, I don’t need to say much on Facebook as many of you can actually lecture me on Facebook. On Facebook, an employer can have a personal presence and a professional fan page. Although Facebook is thought of primarily as a personal networking site, many recruiters and hiring managers are leveraging its wide reach and large audience for influencing potential candidates.

Twitter: With Twitter you have 140 characters to express yourself. Twitter is seen by many as a ‘breaking news’ channel, information spreads faster with a single tweet. Twitter gives recruiters and hiring managers can promote job openings to their followers and target the message accordingly. Job seekers can get first hand job info when they follow the right employers on Twitter.

Build a competitive personal brand:

Getting a job in this social media era require online visibility – personal branding. Personal branding is one of the best way to advance in your job search. Hence, you would need to use social media in building your personal brand.We live in a brand new world of perception! You decide what others and most especially “what Google would say about you”. How you are perceived as an individual goes to affect your career as well as the type of job you get.

Hence, the need to take charge of your personal brand most especially online. In order to communicate the right personal brand message to others, you have to consciously decide what that message is going to be. Would you like to be seen as a professional in your field of interest or an amateur? You decide…

Expand your network:

Permit me to say, your social network is essential to your getting your desired job. So, make conscious effort to build relationships with organisations and individuals of interest to you and don’t be afraid to reach out through several social media platforms. The key point here is symbiotic relationship and not parasitic. Never be a desperate job seeker when networking on social media, add value to people on social media and value would flow back to you in return. That is the secret of social media networking at its best.

There is a growing number of success stories of individuals getting jobs by actively networking on social networking sites. Lots of recruiters, hiring managers, and industry networkers are swapping job leads and industry updates on social media platforms, why not join the flow and get your dream job!

Job seeker, social media is your friend, so embrace it!

Till next time, we are all work in progress...