Social media is a powerful tool and can be used in many positive ways including in the job industry today. Popular social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and/or Twitter play a huge part in your job process, allowing employers to get a first-hand peek before actually meeting you. Scary, right?
While social media can possibly help you find a job you’ve been wanting, it can also hurt you as well. Here are a few things you need to know about social media when you’re searching for a job:
- Networking
Social media is a way to easily network with various people online; it’s a way to interact and communicate with others, while building a relationship with those in your industry.
When you use social media platforms like LinkedIn, you can effortlessly start connecting with current and former employers, coworkers, colleagues, recruiters and so many more, in one click of a button.
While connecting and growing your professional network may increase your likelihood of getting hired; there are other social media platforms we use that may hurt us in our job search as well. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where we typically post more personal and less-professional posts can possibly be the underlying reason. Why? Depending on what you are posting, employers might just be able to search that up, and reconsider even bringing you in. While, it’s totally okay to post things like that, you might want to take anything you wouldn’t want your employer to see temporarily off or change your privacy settings for the meantime.
So be SMART! And keep it PG and all around-positive until you get the job, maybe!
- Don’t Be Sloppy
Your website, blog or social media accounts are usually set to public. Anything you post out in the web is out for your employer to see. Keep your activity purposeful and try not to use careless errors, like spelling mistakes, poor grammar or offensive language.
Again, on the employer side, this may be all reflecting on your actual skills or habits. If you are applying for something within writing or computer, and they see your blog with misspelled words and grammar, they most likely will not want to meet with you.
Every piece of profile you have out there should act like a resume, portraying skills and interests in the field.
Social media can be a make it or break it deal for employers; if you are mindful of what you post, you can absolutely use social media as an advantage. So next time you log on to your social media profiles, think to yourself first, are these platforms helping or hurting me in my job search!
