Your online presence is an important part of your job search, and spring is the perfect time to freshen it up. Different social media channels have different personalities, which means that you must apply different strategies to each to make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward. Here are some dos and don’ts for the three most common social media sites:
- Make sure you have a professional photo of yourself to break up what can be an overwhelming amount of text. If you work in design or something creative, take advantage of the Portfolio option to add even more visual interest.
- Because of LinkedIn’s business focus, it’s one of the best places to network. Take advantage of this by joining one or more groups, whether it’s an alumni organization or a local networking group for people in your industry.
- When you share updates on LinkedIn, make sure that they are pertinent to your career or your industry. Because it’s a career-oriented site and not a personal site, it’s much easier to over share.
- Fill out your work and education in the About Me section and make sure it’s public so that if a recruiter visits your profile, they see consistent information with what’s on your resume.
- When it comes to status updates, keep personal things like photos of you at a friend’s housewarming backyard barbeque private. Articles about your industry are fine to share with a thoughtful comment, as is occasional news about your career progress.
- Once in awhile, go to your profile and select “View As…” to see what you’re showing to the general public. As you review your posts, ask yourself what kind of story you’re telling about your potential as an employee. If necessary, adjust your privacy settings to restrict what details the public might see.
- Twitter is as personal as LinkedIn is professional, which gives you the opportunity to talk more about your interests outside of work and to show what a well-rounded person you are. No matter what you do, don’t be boring.
- Because of how it’s structured, Twitter can be trickier to use in a professional capacity, but you can never go wrong by being yourself. Use the 80-20 rule when thinking about your feed in terms of how much content you create versus how much you reply to other people or retweet things you find interesting.
- Follow companies that you’re interested in working for so that you can be among the first to know when there’s a job opening. This is also a great way to get a handle on their company culture which could help you once you apply for a job with them.
Looking for more ways to freshen up your job hunt for spring? Start off the season with one of our recruiting experts at Burnett’s Staffing. We’re ready to put you to work in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex!