Written by Dave Cullen
Over the past number of years, social media networks have changed the game when it comes to finding employment. Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and countless other mass media communication platforms have all become powerful networking tools for the modern jobseeker. In this article we will discuss how best to employ these websites into your job search.
Facebook: If you wish to continue using your own personal Facebook account, be sure to remove any inappropriate photos and posts. A growing number of employers are now screening the social networking accounts of their applicants and will they likely take an unfavourable view of compromising images of you. Alternatively you should consider creating a new Facebook account specifically for professional career purposes.
You should attempt to communicate with the company you wish to work for by ‘liking’ their Facebook page. This is an excellent way of interacting with your potential future employer. Try to become a regular commenter on their status updates and provide meaningful feedback to their posts. Frequent contributors on a company’s social media pages can often get noticed and their opinion is highly valuable. This can lead to the development of a relationship with you and their marketing department, from there a direct line of communication with their hiring manager may emerge.
Google+: When creating your professional Google+ account, be sure to organise your contacts into different circles. Your connections can be categorised into friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances etc. In many ways, Google+ allows you to have the best of features from Facebook and LinkedIn because it functions extremely well as both a personal and professional social media networking service. Your aim when it comes to finding a job through social network websites is to make connections with influential people in the companies you wish to work for. You are more likely to feature on their radar if you engage frequently in their discussions and become a trusted subscriber of their content.
You should also consider taking advantage of the powerful front-end, search engine within Google+ called Sparks. This feature allows you to identify and recommend interesting content from your industry of interest. All of the latest news and conversations from your Spark searches will be continuously updated live on the left-hand navigation pane of your Google+ homepage. This will help you to keep up to speed on the latest developments within your target sector.
LinkedIn: This website provides employers with an excellent means of gaining an at-a-glance impression of a candidate. LinkedIn allows users to connect to people they know like friends, colleagues, former bosses and just about anyone you would consider to be a valuable contact. Once you have created your account, you can search for companies you are interested in working for and attempt to connect with employees of that organisation. This can be achieved by finding people in the company who may be already connected with some of your own personal contacts and asking for an introduction.
It is advised that you tailor your LinkedIn profile for the kind of job you want, not the job you have and request recommendations from your references. You can then tag them to your previous employment experience postings. LinkedIn serves as the online representation of your CV. Success on LinkedIn is based on being able to effectively showcase your career profile. We recommend that you customise your LinkedIn account to what the employer is looking for you, which can increase your chances of being hired.
