How to get hired with social media?

With the rise of social media, it was no wonder that job recruiters would take to social platforms to find potential employees. To make the most of each social media, there are three aspects to take into consideration, and a few practices for job seekers and graduates.

Those three aspects are:

  • Persistence
  • Searchability and
  • Quality

A job seeker will have to be persistent in posting, updating and even searching social media platforms for companies, even company events. The posts on an individual’s social platform will have to be of quality – no point in updating a Twitter feed with what you had for lunch and with who.

Another tip, is searchability. What social media platforms are you using? And what about your privacy settings? There are certain ways to make yourself seen by the public without comprising your own privacy.

Facebook has now allowed individual to post their own ‘professional skills’ onto their profile page, which is discoverable by others and job recruiters. If the prospect of companies searching through all your posts make you uncomfortable, plenty of individuals have a separate Facebook page purely for job seeking.

It may be of interest to a current job seeker/graduate to ‘clean up’ their social media presence. In the UK, 9% of 16 to 24 year olds were rejected from jobs due to their online. With at least 98% of employers making use of social media to find candidates and connecting and engaging with them, it has made recruiters ‘see’ what candidates are like online, and not just what they say on their CVs.

Social Media platforms are rising, with 175 million users of LinkedIn, 1 billion users on Facebook and 500 million on Twitter, 400 million on Google+, social media is an excellent way to built professional relationships with recruiters.

So, how do you get hired with social media?

The benefits of using social media to be hired has many, if you know how to use it well. For one, social media can help a potential employee to learn about a company or organization’s values as well as it’s key culture. A candidate can also find out about the organization’s corporate public events and use these as opportunities to network.

With persistence, quality and searchability being the key aspects in branding yourself to potential employers, there are other factors to take into account to make yourself more appealing to recruiters.

To make yourself high on their radar, you must keep all your profile pages update for a start, and ‘cleaned’ of anything you do not wish to be remembered for, for example, an old tweet bad mouthing a tutor or ex-employer.

Also, by providing  links to interesting articles and examples of your own work, it will showcase your talent and skills, not just having access to online platforms.

But simply do not use social media platforms to drag about your own achievements. Respond to comments and do not use repetitive, regular, updates all the time. Think carefully about what you are trying to convey through a post and how does it market you positively.

It is all about being connected and having skills to showcase quality posts and achievements, so that your chances of being employed are higher. Below is an infographic explaining how recruiters are using social media to hire candidates. Graduates and job seekers – take notes.

Capital Placement

Capital Placement

Capital Placement offering global internship programmes for students and recent graduates since 2012 with one of our 1500+ partner companies across 25+ industries.

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