Harnessing Social Media to Find the Perfect Job – Advanced Strategies (Part 2 of 3)
Once you have successfully completed the five basic steps for making social media work in your favor while job searching, it’s time to do some fine tuning and networking. You’ve officially created your LinkedIn account and filled out every section with great content. You’ve gone through each of your social media accounts from top to bottom, ensuring they are “employer friendly”. You’re now active on all the most popular social media platforms and familiar with how they work. You’ve spent some time liking and following people, pages and influencers within the industry you’ve chosen for your career path. So now what?
Here are the five advanced steps you can take to make social media work in your favor while looking for that next great role.
1. Build your LinkedIn network.
A completed, well executed LinkedIn page will often be overlooked by employers if you haven’t established a strong network. Search for people you’ve developed a connection with, whether personal or professional, and send them an invitation to connect. Interact with new connections by endorsing them for skills listed on their profile, commenting on their content and sharing their posts if you find them particularly interesting or of value. Many people will appreciate your endorsement, and return the favor.
Follow company pages that you’re interested in and/or would love to work for. LinkedIn actually provides information on how you and the people in your network are connected to a particular company. When you go to a company’s LinkedIn page, it will show you how many people in your network are also connected to that company. Leverage that to reach out and interact. Your dream company’s employees could end up helping you into that company or put you in front of a new connection who could be helpful in your journey.
Updating your LinkedIn status by sharing valuable content often is imperative for not only getting noticed by employers and recruiters, but in establishing overall credibility. This also improves your visibility within your network and increases the probability that you will be considered as a network connection that shares value-added content worth reading.
2. Follow companies you’re interested in on your social media accounts.
Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even Pinterest, search for all the companies you’re interested in and like or follow them. Now those companies content will be readily available on your newsfeed and timeline. This keeps you in the loop on company activities, job postings and gives you a better understanding of what they find important. If a company takes the time to share the content, they obviously find it of utmost importance. Make it a point to like, favorite, share and comment on their posts often. And, who knows, there may be a recruiter reading those comments.
3. Share valuable content on your social media accounts.
Reading books, articles and blog posts that relate to the career of your dreams is imperative for making a good impression to those who follow you. When you share content, provide your own comments surrounding how you feel about what you’re sharing, how it impacted you or why you find it valuable. Chances are your followers who share similar interests will take the time to read your content, share it with their network and comment on it if you have established credibility through consistently sharing great content. Respond to comments left by your followers and start a conversation. Not only will you be participating in conversation with those who share similar interests, but this also opens the doors to establishing new connections.
4. Use #hashtags that are relative to the content you share.
Regardless of the social media platform you share from, always use hashtags. The use of hashtags on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is vital because without using them, your posts can go virtually unnoticed to those who are not currently in your network. People have the ability to search for a particular hashtag on their social media platforms, and if you use a hashtag, your post will be included in the search results. Three hashtags that are relevant to the content shared is ideal and also shows seasoned social media buffs that you know what you’re doing.
5. Interact with the key influencers within the industry you’re interested in.
Visit key influencers social media accounts and interact with them by commenting and sharing their content. Not only will you learn more about them and what they find important, but you also have the opportunity to impress recruiters and other influencers who may be following the conversation of a particular post.
The key take away to these five advanced steps on how you can utilize social media in your job search is to stay active and be consistent. Make interacting via social media a priority every day. You never know who you might be impressing on the other side of a computer screen. Check out part 3 of our “Harnessing Social Media to Find the Perfect Job – Become an Expert” series to gain a more extensive understanding of the steps you should take to set yourself up for excellence.
–Marleen Eitzen Shanks, CEO and Founder, Team Red Dog, with guest blogger, Kristen Brewer
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