Your career is essentially your business. You need to plan, and actively manage your career.
You can do this by getting yourself noticed, being easily found and making connections.
You and you alone are responsible for your personal brand and career advancement. Making yourself a brand is easily achievable with social media.
Here are my tips for finding a job through social media:
Start a profile on LinkedIn
Unlike Facebook and Twitter where you can mix personal with professional, LinkedIn is specifically for business and professionals and it means it is the ideal place to build your profile when searching for a job.
If you don’t have a profile, create one today, it is a simple step-by-step process and will put you in front of millions of other professionals from every industry.
Start connecting with the right people
On LinkedIn make sure to connect with the people who you want to work with or for. Send them a quick message through LinkedIn’s internal message service outlining why you want to work for the company and what skills you can bring to the table. Also, start following the companies you want to work for on LinkedIn, they usually post open positions and it will give you a brief insight into the companies’ culture.
Make the most of your LinkedIn profile
Your summary on your LinkedIn profile should outline the type of job you are looking for as well as your skills and experience. Make sure to use keywords from your industry in your profile as well so you will come up in searches when people are looking for someone with your skills. For example I don’t say Director of CP Communications; I am a Public Relations and Social Media expert. These are terms people will use when searching for someone with my skills.
Join relevant groups
On LinkedIn every profession and industry has a group started by either an individual or a company. Find the ones relating to you and join them. Then join in on the conversations and discussions happening by either sharing an interesting article, or commenting on someone else’s post. This will put you top of mind of people who are already working where you want to be.
Create a YouTube resume
Outline your experience and what you can offer a company in a 1-2 minute video. Make sure you look presentable and speak well, you don’t want a lot of ums and ahs when you’re trying to impress. Share this video on all of your social media sites and send it as a link when applying for jobs as well, it will help you to stand out from the crowd and is a chance for you to show a bit of your personality, especially if you’re not that good with words.
Join twitter
Twitter is a way to connect with key people, engage with your followers, start conversations and build relationships, and position yourself as an expert. Start tweeting interesting articles and information about the industry you are trying to gain a job in. Tweet around four times a day with links back to interesting articles.
Connect with influencers on twitter
Follow and retweet influential people within your industry on twitter. By retweeting their tweets (sharing them with your followers) they will notice you. By following them you will be able to see what they are interested in and you can start a conversation with them about that through twitter. More importantly they may tweet any job openings they have.
Start a blog
Start a blog and share your expertise of your industry. Write at least two posts a week on a topic relating to the industry or profession you want to be employed in. This will help to grow your profile as a thought leader and expert. For example, if you are looking for a job in HR you could write a blog post on retention strategies or executive education. Make your blogs around 400 words and ensure you check your spelling and grammar.
Guest blog for other people
Find blogs that write about your industry or profession and contact the blogger to see if they are open to guest blogs. If they are, send them a blog post you have written on a topic they would be interested in. This will help to spread your profile through an already established, credible blog with a readership that is already established.
Almost everything we do has an online aspect, and job hunting is no different. There are so many opportunities on social media now and if you’re not looking on social media platforms, you’re missing out.
Ensure everything on social media is professional but at the same time shows your personality. This allows people to see the person behind the profile.
Get more social media tips in this FREE ebook:
Sydney Social Media and Public Relations Agency, CP Communications blends cutting edge offline and online PR and social media to help you gain a competitive advantage. Contact us today. For more great tips visit our website www.cpcommunications.com.au.
