Submitted by guest blogger, Alex Moore.
How hard is it to find jobs with social media?
Everything from food and clothes to cars and fully-furnished homes can be bought online. You can plan entire trips, organize birthday parties and do your finances in front of your laptop with great ease. And, of course, to have the means to support yourself through all this, you can also find a good place to work at in the same way.
Social Media Recruiting
There are plenty of ways to engage with the job market nowadays, and the majority of them are available exclusively online. You can find information on requirements, openings and the entire application process for positions in just about any field you could dream of, from human resources and consulting to law and medicine.
Similarly, if you want to showcase your resume in a professional and innovative way, LinkedIn is a good place to start, as are other local websites frequented by both candidates and companies. These differ from country to country, but their universal benefit is that they make the job hunt a lot easier for everyone.
Related: Use LinkedIn to Find Your Next Job
All in all, getting hired is a much more digitized process than it was ten years ago when the regular approach was a hands-on one. Gone are the iconic, sitcom-esque days of looking for professional opportunities by circling ads in the newspaper. Now, you’re one Google search away from your dreams at any moment.
At this point, it should also be emphasized that company recruiting strategies are gravitating more and more towards social media platforms too. The fact that more and more big names in the industry are making use of Facebook to attract interesting and viable applications is no secret, but their scope has been expanding tremendously over the course of the last few years.
Most firms are active across multiple platforms simultaneously, especially if their candidate pool and target demographic usually consist of younger audiences in the 18 to 30 age group. As Facebook has been the norm for quite some time now, it’s not uncommon to see them on Instagram, Twitter, and even Snapchat.
In a similar way, fresh members of the workforce who work in digitized or creative fields tend to use their social media profiles in lieu of portfolios and even resumes sometimes. This doesn’t only facilitate the entire recruitment and hiring process, but it also offers better ways of showcasing and conveying assets for both parties.
Networking with industry pros on Twitter is one such method that has become increasingly popular among the tech-enthusiastic applicant pool. By mutually connecting with brands, companies and employees in your field, and then sharing content that is relevant to them, you could find yourself on the path towards a blossoming career.
Similarly, Facebook’s fairly new Jobs feature allows candidates to send their resume for openings in their area, which opens a direct discussion with the company in question. Nevertheless, this means that you profile needs to be as professional as possible, because the employer will surely review it before taking any further action.
Related: Use Facebook Jobs Feature to Find your Next Career
Up and Coming Trends to Find Jobs with Social Media
Naturally, no discussion on modern media would be complete without an overview of the most recent trends in the field. As everyone and their cat is all too familiar with Facebook at this point, and with the recent youth exodus away from the platform and towards more innovative environments, what’s next for the job industry?
One of the best examples that come to mind is that of LinkedIn. Even though it has been an important tool for many years now, it’s bound to become even more versatile in the near future. When it first went live, the platform tried to differentiate itself from competitors such as Facebook or Twitter by focusing on its status as a “professional social network”.
But as others grew, LinkedIn lagged behind for a while. And then it was reborn from its own ashes like a beautiful, job-oriented Phoenix bird whose purpose is to put the most appropriate candidates in contact with the best companies and vice versa. Today, LinkedIn has over 500 million members worldwide. At this point, you might be wondering how this came to be.
Well, the answer is really simple, actually. The people behind the project simply realized that they need to broaden their spectrum to reach a vaster audience. This is why today’s LinkedIn also specializes in creating original content, with more than 100,000 articles published each week. Thus, if you haven’t jumped on this train yet, you’d better do it soon.
To achieve the best results, first ensure that your profile is strong and shows off your aptitudes. Setting up a customized link for it doesn’t hurt either because it’s seen as a sign of professionalism by the top names in the industry. In this digitized age, a high-quality presence on LinkedIn can make all the difference in the world for employers and employees alike.
Instagram Joins the Game
Another up and coming name in the game undoubtedly has to be Instagram. The amazing branding opportunities that companies have managed to find on the platform as it rose in popularity are well-known by everyone at this point. But recent trend forecasts seem to focus on Instagram recruiting, more specifically by using the Stories feature.
According to SocialMediaToday, Instagram Stories receive on average 35% more views that Snapchat Stories, which is something both companies and potential candidates can benefit from. Therefore, as the days of Facebook recruiting are coming to an end, engaging with potential employers on Instagram might just be the new craze we’ve all been expecting.
Final Thoughts
No one could have guessed exactly how big of a staple social media would become in our daily lives. Even though it was always seen as a promising project, the World Wide Web has grown so much over the past decade that even its most optimistic supports are left in awe. And thanks to this process, we now have everything at our fingertips. We just have to use it right.
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Alex Moore is a Psychology Undergraduate and HR Consultant who admires innovative approaches in jobs- whether we’re talking about original resumes or workplace health . You’ll typically find him writing for www.jobapplicationcenter.com.
