While most of us use social media to watch funny short videos, stalk photos (all guilty!) and connect with our friends, many employers now use it to recruit new employees.
The three main websites used are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, which can all be used for finding that perfect job. The employers want you to apply for their jobs as much as you want them, so they all advertise heavily meaning that now, instead of always advertising clothes and shoes, sites such as Facebook also advertise graduate careers.
Recently, I’ve seen on Facebook a new way of recruiting people for jobs and even work experience. Companies such as Random House put up an event, detailing the time and location of the work experience, and you state that you’re attending. You then submit an email with a CV and covering letter to try and secure the placement. The important thing to remember here is that companies want you to ‘like’ their recruitment page, and when you do, they can see the majority of your profile information, so maybe delete those pics from the best night ever at Ocean and clean up your profile to make it a little more professional. Graduate jobs are advertised in a similar way, and Facebook can be a fab research tool as you can also find people who do the jobs that you’re interested in.
Twitter seems to have made FB a bit redundant lately, and #hashtags seem to be the way to find opportunities. Job listings are found under tags such as #jobsearch, and then more narrow fields can be found with searches such as #graduatejobs and #prjobs. By using these tags, those looking to recruit can also find you, so check your followers! #easy
Twitter is also good in that you can use it to engage with employers, particularly those with graduate positions as the likelihood is that the person behind the tweets is somebody like yourself. You can also follow recruitment pages and see when they have vacancies. Just make sure your tweets are clean and the perfect job could be on your way.
Lastly, the big cheese of social media and recruitment, LinkedIn. Now, I have to admit that it’s a bit of a minefield and confuses me ever so slightly, but when you’ve cracked it, it acts like an online CV where you can really sell yourself to future employers. You can add links to people you’ve worked with in the past, whether it be for work experience or just a part time job, and they can provide references and help you to network with people they know.
So there we go. How to use your social media account for more than having some down time. Good luck!