Social Media, Personal Brand and Your Next Job
Social media is an important tool in recruitment – both by candidates looking for a new job and employers searching for new staff and researching potential candidates. So it’s crucial that your various profiles on social media give the best impression of your ‘personal brand’; reflecting your personal values and professional skills.
Your personal brand needs to be consistent across all your social media platforms including the ones you use in your personal and professional life. Remember anything that you create, share or react to online is visible, so how you conduct yourself online is just as important as your behaviour offline. Even if you don’t use Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for work, you still need to be conscious of what you are posting if you want to create a positive, professional image of yourself.
If you are considering applying for a new role or have been turned down for a job and are unsure why, it’s probably a good idea to conduct a personal brand audit. Here’s how:
Check your social media profiles are projecting the right personal brand
Delete any old accounts you no longer use and then adjust your privacy settings on current social media accounts. Remember some information including your profile picture may still be able to be seen publicly so chose an image that is consistent with the personal brand you want to promote. Think about what you’re posting. Ask yourself what impression would your post have on a potential employer. Use common sense!
Optimise your LinkedIn profile
This is one of the most useful online tools you have as a job candidate so use it to the best of your ability. Include a professional profile picture and spend time crafting a compelling headline to summarise what you do and specialise in; not just your job title. Provide lots of detail in the personal profile and skills sections to really sell yourself, your skills and experiences. This will help potential employers find you when they search LinkedIn for people with particular talents. Recruiters and talent acquisition experts will use streams of key terms to search LinkedIn profiles. It is important for you to appear in the search results for the roles you would like to be considered for so put some thought into what key words, qualifications and experiences recruiters will be searching for and drop these in your profile. It is also worth putting in full terms as well as abbreviations to optimise search results for recruiters. You also need to check your spelling. If a recruiter is searching for key words and your profile includes misspelt words you may be missed. A common example is Programme and Program.
When you’re happy with your profile connect with people you know and ask your contacts for endorsements. Develop your profile by posting about the projects you are working on, news within your industry, and resources that you think would be useful to others. And when your followers respond positively to your posts think about how you can build on this with similar content or repurpose something to re-engage. Don’t forget to engage with other people’s posts as a way to connect with others and build your network. Search for and join LinkedIn groups related to your industry and career interests to help make useful connections that could turn out to be your next job opportunity!
Promote yourself on a blog
Promoting your area of expertise and positioning yourself as an expert is a great way to develop your professional brand. You might not think of yourself as a writer, but blogging is an accessible way for everyone to share their expertise and promote themselves online – and there is lots of useful, free advice on the internet on how to write and post a blog. Share your skills, successes and experiences gained from your studies and career that may be of interest to others. You can post articles from your LinkedIn profile and use a blogging platform like Medium which is both easy and free to use.
Take your career to the next level
With over 20 years’ experience of executive search Ocean Edge are in the perfect position to help you with your personal brand. If you need any assistance please get in touch.
You might also find our blog posts on CV writing, interview skills and finding the perfect job helpful.
Contact us for a confidential chat by calling 023 8000 1153 or email us at info@oceanedge.biz.