Photo Credit: Flickr user luca.sartoni
A couple weeks back, I was asked to head back to my alma mater, Central College, and give a presentation about using social media in the job search and to promote yourself. The marketing class I presented to had just read The Brand Called You by Fast Company and was starting their job search. The article states that like any brand your brand has “the same need for visibility—but no budget to buy it”. My suggested solution? Social Media.
Social media allows you many different channels to promote yourself and build a brand around your personality, skills and experiences. For my presentation, I was asked to come up with tips for the students to think about as they moved forward.
Tips for building the ‘You Brand’:
- Be human. Use the different social media channels to promote yourself and create your personality, but avoid being pushy.
- Make connections with people. Don’t just make it a channel to talk with your best friend, reach out to new people with your likes and create a network.
- It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality. Don’t just post something to post it, make it meaningful to your brand, but also something others may be interested in.
- Keep it updated. If you start something, keep it going or remove it. If someone stumbles upon a site that you started and never updated, what does that say about you?
Tips for the job search:
- Use it to market yourself. Create a consistent bio on the social medias you use and even a portfolio, whether it be in a blog or Pinterest. Express your interests, skills and experience. It’s your digital and social resume!
- Connect and learn about companies. Many companies post job openings and recent news releases or happenings on their social media channels. What better way is there to learn about a company of interest or prepare for an interview?
- Follow job postings. It’s a quick way to find openings in areas of interest without laboriously going through company Web pages. Talent Zoo Jobs, for example, has job postings throughout the US and Science Careers has tips current happenings and job postings.
Finally, it is important to remember that using social media is a constant learning experiment. What worked for one person may not work for you, but without attempting you’ll never know the results.