Social media, if used correctly, can be an integral part of your career or job-hunting process. If used incorrectly, your career will be at its mercy. Every comment, post, picture, or tweet could cost you your job and in the worst case, ruin your career.
In this blog post, you’ll learn the different ways your online presence can either make or break your career, you’ll learn personal branding and why it’s important, lastly, you’ll learn how to navigate social media in a way that it benefits your career.
How Social Media can Help Your Personal Brand
Social media is an amazing tool to establish and develop a personal brand, stand out in your industry and build your image.
The importance of personal branding online is rapidly increasing due to the number of benefits it brings to one’s career and professional goals.
A personal brand online can’t be built in a day. It demands the right mix of tactics and continuous effort.
Here are some ways to personally brand yourself online:
It is important to state and define what you want to achieve on social media with your brand. You need to have a reason for branding yourself.
If you want your professional skills to improve your chances of discovering a new job in your field, then your attention and focus should be aimed at building your LinkedIn profile.
When you want to reach a wider audience, you should build your Twitter profile.
If you’re specialized in different arts and crafts, Instagram and Pinterest should be where your focus is.
Every platform is tailored to suit specific needs and niches, this is why you need to understand your career and know the platform you’ll thrive in. This doesn’t mean ignoring the others, it just means understanding where you should apply more effort to get the best results.
Now the importance of personal branding has been discussed, it is important to move on to the next question…
What is Social Media Job Searching?
This is job searching is using channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Social Media isn’t used by just job seekers, it’s used by job seekers and companies looking to hire as well.
The growth of social networks has changed everything. It has made communicating in a digitalized world easier and more effective. And this is more evident when job searching.
How to Job Search Using Social Networks
It is important to build your social media before when you need it. You should always be ready to be found on social media. A recruiter could be looking at your profile or an employer you reached out to first, could be viewing your profile.
Having a social media presence is more than just having a social media account or merely being online. You’ll need to do more than that if you hope to improve your job searching prospects using social media.
There are loads of social media platforms available, but they’re not all necessary for job searching. The most important social media for building a career is LinkedIn. To make your profile stand out to recruiters, you need to make sure your LinkedIn is built out thoroughly with your most current employment information, and make sure it is always kept up to date.
Being forward-looking when it comes to social media will position you so you’re prepared to search for a job at any time whenever you need or you’re looking to change your current place of employment.
It is important to ensure that your profiles are work-appropriate. What this means is that you ensure that your profile, comments, pictures and post are fit and suitable for a workplace environment. It is common for employers to go online and do their due diligence on a candidate by searching online and on any social media platform a candidate is on. With this, you must make sure there’s nothing on your social media profiles that could hinder you from getting a job.
Your Interests and skills should be available in all your social media profile descriptions. These will serve as keywords that will help your profile appear in relevant search results whenever people search for information relating to your skills.
Beyond the need for your profile to remain professional, you should also ensure to be active online, this doesn’t mean being on social media, but you should put an effort into making sure you’re proactive online.
How do Employers Recruit Using Social Media
More and more employers are expanding their hiring processes to include social media websites. Recruiters use social media to source suitable candidates, post jobs and accept job applications.
Social media websites help recruiters to get a clearer sense of who their possible employees maybe even before any formal contact is made.
Social Media makes it easier for companies to know if you’ll fit in a company or not.
Best ways to Grow Your Career Through Social Media
1. Operate a Professional Profile
If you’re not tech-savvy, you may be oblivious to the fact that some social media applications allow users to create professional profiles. The difference between a regular profile and a professional one is that a professional profile allows you to have optimized profiles and this is important because it allows recruiters to find you without having to apply for job.
2.Use Social Media to Showcase Your Talents and Expertise
The untamed growth of the internet has made it extremely easy for employers and job seekers to look for each other on these platforms. To use this to your advantage, you need to showcase your skills for the world to see and the best way to do that is by posting your skills online, this way you’re able to reach a large audience.
3. Participate in Social Media Online Job Forums
Engaging in career platforms online is an important way to build your career. These online platforms are filled with career-related conversations that focus on trending topics in your career and the corporate world. These platforms are great ways to connect with influential communities that will be monumental in building your career.
Participating in these career communities online is a great way to gain valuable information in building your social media presence, network and essentially grow your career.
4. Follow and Interact with like-minded People.
Social networks are full of people with different knowledge, diverse skills and experience in different fields. Interacting with the right people on social media can guarantee you both career and personal growth.
It is important to create connections both in your area of specialization and outside, but more in your area of specialization. Connect with these people and engage in meaningful discourse with them. This way, you’re building connections that will be relevant to you and your career.
5. Upload Your Certifications and Achievements
Building your career online is about showcasing your achievements for the world to see. Got a new certificate? Post it on LinkedIn. Worked on an interesting project? Post it on your social media. This way, you’re building your reputation online as someone worth their salt and someone that is a thought leader in their field.
There is a list of certifications available online both paid and for free, examples of these includes HubSpot, google certification, et cetera.
These courses and certifications would be vital in your current job or prospects.
6. You can use Social Media to Locate Companies in Your Industry
Growing your career with social media is associating with the right individuals and companies. All the companies you’re interested in working with are all online. Find these companies and stay updated with the companies’ salient information such as vacancies.
Social Media is now used by all and sundry- the young and old, the job seekers and employers, sellers and buyers’ businesses and customers, etc. In regards to improving your career, it can be an extremely vital tool. You just need to plan and execute wisely.
It is important to always optimise and improve your social media profiles; researching and learning, showcasing your expertise, increasing your network by making and nurturing vital connections. These ideas listed above are meant to help you kickstart your career by using social networks in a way that is more than just connecting with friends and family.
