Using Social Media To Find A Job

In a modern world interlinked by social media, it is more important than ever before to have a strong social media presence when searching for a job. You can also use social media as a tool for searching effectively for open positions, network with other professionals, learning about industries and job roles, and promoting your own personal brand.

Learn a few ways to help promote your personal brand through our tips to help you find a job using social media.

Awareness of your Personal Social Media Sites

Whether it is fair or not, employers will immediately take the name and information that you put on your resume and cover letter, and perform advanced searches using Google to find as much information about you as possible. While that may seem like a nightmare to you, it doesn’t have to be. You can adjust the privacy settings on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus to control what outsiders can and cannot see. To test that, simply log out of your social media profiles and go to your public profile pages to see what is visible to potential employers. While you can hide information about yourself, you can also use the opportunity to highlight your past work experience, schools and organizations you may be involved in, and a short biography about yourself that you wouldn’t mind potential employers to see.

Let Others Know You’re Looking

Even if a potential employer stumbles across your online profile, and thinks you would be a good person to work for their company, they may not reach out to you if you don’t make it clear that you are seeking a new position. Connect with others and let them know that you are seeking a position. Even if they don’t know of any openings at the moment, they can keep you in the back of their minds for when a position opens up. This really only applies for half of us however, as you might not want to display information that you are seeking a new job for your current employer to find.

Look Up the Interviewer

While Facebook might not be the best source for finding out about the interviewer, you can seek out information on Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn. Look up blog posts they may have written, what professional organizations they are currently in, and other information that they would find useful and valuable. You don’t have to make it a point that you did a bit of social media stalking prior to the interview, but you can bring up their interests and involvements and your knowledge of them.

Join Industry Discussions

Twitter and LinkedIn provide excellent mediums for connecting with professionals in a niche industry. Once you start a discussion, be sure you follow up with anyone who responds to your questions or comments, and don’t make the priority of discussion about you looking for a job. Additionally, you can connect and network with other job seekers who may have more or less experience than you, and can give you recommendations or steer you in the right direction to help out your job search.

Post Documents Online

Employers who browse through potential the social media profiles of applicants online love to see the documents they are looking for without asking for them – namely the resume and cover letter. If you already have a website, upload both documents as pdf files to your website that job providers can easily download for their own use. If you don’t have a website, you can easily create a free subdomain website using the services of WordPress or Weebly, and their interfaces make it simple to set up a few professional looking webpages in no time.

Post Social Media on Paper

Sort of the opposite of posting documents online, be sure to include URL links to your Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus profile pages on your resume. If you submit a digital copy of your resume, make sure that the links are hyperlinked so the recruiter won’t have any trouble accessing your social media profiles. Also be sure that you are linking to the correct URLs, as many job seekers link to their LinkedIn page when they are logged on, which is different from their public profile URL address.

About Author: Mike Hall is a job recruitment specialist who understands the challenges of standing out in a sea of applicants for a competitive job. Mike works with Leapdoctor.com, a leading employment resource for physicians.