Social media can hugely increase your opportunity of securing the role you want. What was once mostly just for fun, but not any more. Social media is now a critical part of the way people communicate and a key part of how work gets done.
Effective use of Social media
Hire Pals can help you gain a competitive advantage through the use of professional social media. We focus here on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, but be sure to keep up with the evolution of the platforms, more and more companies are engaging with job seekers via Instagram and YouTube. Also keep your eye out for newcomers that you can utilise and always keep looking for ways to optimise your use of the platforms.
Social media allows you to do at least four important things:
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Learn and discover new ideas and trends.
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Connect with both existing and new audiences
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Bring attention and traffic to your work
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Develop and enhance your own personal brand
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The following tips can be applied to different social media platforms. Now on to the platforms;
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LinkedIn is the number one professional social media network and has circa 500 million members. It is also one of the social media platforms that is often under utilised.
A lot of people take LinkedIn for granted and only start using it when they need to change jobs. Our recommendation is that you treat LinkedIn like a career management tool and use it for much more than just job hunting. Your Hire Pals coach can help you set up your LinkedIn profile if you don’t have one, or only have a basic profile.
Building your network and influence
There are many ways to develop your network by finding and connecting with other professionals in your industry. The key is to find, approach and connect with people you already know, people you would like to know and people you should know. You should also post your own content, showing off your expertise on a regular basis.
LinkedIn has a great recommendation feature and we would encourage you to take advantage of this. Some employers take LinkedIn recommendations almost as seriously as references received in more traditional ways.
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Your LinkedIn profile
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There are four key things to remember when creating your LinkedIn profile.
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Be visible - Add a good quality photo and smile
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Be contactable - Ensure your contact details are included
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Use appropriate keywords - Ensure these are relevant to your industry
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Stay active - 15mins per day can often be enough
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Personalise your headline
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This is an important part of your profile, and it should reflect the message that you’re trying to convey.
Example: Head of Customer Service | Delighting our customers up and down the country
Use a quality profile image
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Make this relevant to your industry and/or role and smile.
Add a summary
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This is an important part of your profile, as you want to resonate with individuals when they begin to read more about you. Not only is it an opportunity to share some of your accomplishments, but it’s also an opportunity to share your ambitions and aspirations. It’s also a great place to include keywords that feed recruiters’ and hiring managers’ search algorithms; this will help make you more visible in search results.
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Add work experience
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Ensure that you write about your role and responsibilities you have had, as well focusing on some of the highlights and project achievements. Essentially you want your profile to have a compelling reason for a recruiter or potential employer to take a second extended look at the rest of your profile. Feel free to go back as far as you’re comfortable for work positions, We recommend ten years (if you have that amount of experience).
Include bullet points to break up bulk text, and if you have any pictures or non- confidential reports, add these to help make you stand out.
Add education/courses/certification
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Ensure that you add any relevant qualifications to your profile including courses and certificates.
Add skills
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Add up to 50 relevant skills to your profile. This will increase your chances of appearing in searches by hiring individuals.
Your connections can then endorse your skills too, to back up that you have these proficiencies.
Add recommendations
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Ask contacts to recommend your work. You can also return the favour by recommending them.
Contact details
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Remember that LinkedIn is a public forum so any contact details you upload will be there for everyone to access. We recommend updating on this on a regular basis based on whether you are actively searching for a new job or not.
Open to job opportunities?
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Make yourself known to recruiters by turning on “Let recruiters know you’re open”. Update your career interests including job titles, locations, types of contract, and industry. Once you have shared your career interests, your LinkedIn profile will be shared with Recruiters.
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Searching for Jobs
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When searching for new jobs, if you do not have time to apply at the exact moment you can save your interest and return to it later. If you are interested in professionals contacting you, ensure that you are open to receiving Inmails from prospective recruiters and hiring managers that want to engage in a conversation with you about new opportunities.
Publish articles or blog posts
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One of the most powerful ways to share your passion and expertise, as well as increasing your visibility on the site, is to blog. LinkedIn’s platform makes it extremely easy for you to write an article, make it look professional and then share it out with the world. Why not set yourself a target of posting one article a week/2 weeks/month for example to get started. Remember a blog post can be as short or specific as you want it to be. It certainly doesn’t have to be war and peace.
Post or share an update
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LinkedIn is also a great platform for you to share articles that you and your network will find beneficial, these can be useful resources, company or industry news or personal thoughts. In doing so, you help to brand yourself as a thought leader in your field as well as provide great value for others. Try to keep your posts appropriate to the site and don’t over-post - one post every few days is a good target to begin.
Comment on other peoples posts
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A great way to build your network is to share your opinion on others posts. This not only shows support for your fellow professionals, but also increases the visibility of your own profile. We recommend connecting with industry leaders and commenting / re-sharing their thoughts to your own audience.
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Target companies
Be sure to follow the companies in your target list and set up job alerts link to them.
Twitter is a great way to curate news related to your industry and has circa 328 million users to network with. Because twitter moves very quickly and is instant, it means you are able to:
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Know in real-time about developments in your industries.
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Share, comment and be part of a global conversation
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Building your network and influence
When job hunting via Twitter, who you follow is very important. You are able to build lists of influencers by industry and topic (these lists can be public or private) and you’ll be able to see what they are interested in, what they’re thinking about and get ideas on how to reach out and connect to them. When someone in your industry asks a question or requests assistance, you can participate and show how relevant and useful you can be. There are numerous instances of Twitter conversations turning into face-to-face meetings.
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Twitter live video and Twitter polls are also very useful. Twitter’s live video tool lets you share video and interact with those posting videos that matter to you.
Twitter polls lets you provide users with up to four answers to choose between and see the results in real-time, can be another way to engage with, and expand, your network. You’ll often see businesses running polls about specific products to gauge reactions from customers and potential customers.
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Target companies
You can also follow target companies and communicate directly with employers. Many organisations will have a social media team managing their twitter profile and will encourage customers or interested individuals to comment and engage with their brands. If you have applied, or if you are interested in applying to that company, why not simply ask them what it’s like to work there and what advice they would give to a prospective candidate. It is in their interest to respond as it's a positive engagement for their brand. Likewise, if you have applied for a role and have not heard back from the company, simply let them know and they can look into your application for you.
Protect your privacy
As social media has become more popular, there are also more instances of people who have gotten in trouble for their social networking habits. The fact is that it’s impossible to separate the personal use of social media from the professional, and everything you say online can and will be used against you. There are ways in which you can try to safeguard your privacy and control who sees particular content, but you need to be vigilant. So, the more seriously you can take your social media activities, the better.
Always be aware of company policies about the use of social media. It is becoming more and more common that businesses are introducing social media usage policies for staff.
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Get in touch with us directly at info@HirePals.co.uk to get tailored 121 advice of your own profiles.