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Future Worker

Beginners level

Unit 3: Promote yourself through social media

AIMS & OBJECTIVES

  1. The purpose of this Unit is to highlight the importance of a strong professional online presence through the use of social media

  2. The goal of this Unit is to raise awareness on the basic fuctionalities of Linkedin and Facebook

LEARNING OUTCOMES

LOut3: Use effectively social media applications for your professional enhancement 

LOut4: Apply useful tips so as to make a good first impression as a job candidate.

KEYWORDS

  • Soft skills
  • Intercultural skills
  • CV/Resume
  • Cover letter
  • Social media

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3.1 Introduction

  • Social media is emerging as a popular and useful way to connect adults and especially young people with employment opportunities.
  • However, in an era where It’s completely legal for employers to check a candidate’s public social media platforms and as the lines between “public – private” and “personal -professional” social media use are blurred, our online presence can either facilitate us to find a job or could cost us the prospect of a future job (or even our current one!)
  • Facebook, as the most “social” of social networks, is used more extensively than more “professional” online networks like LinkedIn and XING (mostly in German speaking countries) for job searching reasons or during people’s professional lives.
  • As for the employers, they use social media for recruitment and they also tend to examine candidates’ social media accounts in order to find out more about their personality beyond the CV and the cover letter.
  • This Unit discusses the importance of a strong professional online presence and offers useful tips on what to post and don’t post on social media.

3.2 Building a strong social media presence

The basics: Creating a Facebook account

If you want to create a Facebook personal account, visit https://www.facebook.com/help/188157731232424 and follow the instructions.

Tip: If the language doesn’t change automatically, you can change it from the pages’ footer.

To create a Facebook account:

 

 

The basics: Creating a Facebook Business Page

If you want to create a Facebook Business page, visit https://www.facebook.com/help/104002523024878 and follow the on-screen instructions.

Tip: You can change the language from the pages’ footer.

To create a Page:

  • Go to facebook.com/pages/create.
  • Click to choose a Page type.
  • Fill out the required information.
  • Click Continueand follow the instructions.

*Note: Anyone can create a Page, but only official
representatives can create a Page for an organization,
business, brand or public figure.

The basics: Creating a LinkedIn profile

If you want to create a LinkedIn profile, visit https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/2964/signing-up-to-join-linkedin?lang=en and follow the on-screen instructions.

Tip: You can change the language preferences from the pages’ footer.

To join LinkedIn and create your profile:

  • Navigate to the LinkedIn sign up page.
  • Type your first and last name, email address, and a password you’ll use. You must use your true namewhen creating a profile.
  • Click Join now.
  • Complete any additional steps as prompted.

Randstad RiseSmart (2016) gives some useful tips for marketing yourself on social media:

Make it relevant and complete

When you’re building your social profiles, make sure that you include all of the relevant information. For example, when filling out a LinkedIn profile, it’s important that you cover your complete employment history, educational background and any skills or certifications that you’ve acquired that will boost your value.

Keep it updated

Keeping your online professional presence up-to-date is extremely important. You never know who’s looking at your profile at a given time, so not updating it can result in lost opportunities.

Engage in career-relevant conversations

Groups are an excellent way for individuals to advertise their interests on social media. Connecting with others whose goals align with yours can show recruiters and hiring managers that you’re active and dedicated to learning more about the industry.

Brad Schepp, co-author of the book “How to Find a Job on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+”, recommends “liking” companies you’re interested in and joining the conversation about industry trends to demonstrate your expertise and value to a potential employer.

Keep in mind that especially on Facebook there are also many groups uploading job advertisements.

 

Every social media account, counts

 Most employers view LinkedIn as a kind of “secondary”  CV and other social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as more personal, including usually more details about a candidate’s personality, character, ideas, beliefs, hobbies, preferences etc.

Job seekers would be better to assume that a recruiter or future employer will check every social media platform.

While the fear of a something negative or embarrassing being  discovered by a future employer might tempt some candidates to completely erase their account(s), employers say that this strategy can backfire, giving the impression that the candidate has indeed “something to hide”.

Checking your account’s privacy settings is very important in any case.

3.3 What NOT to post on social media

According to a 2018 CareerBuilder survey (Driver, 2020), these are -in random order- the types of posts and behaviors that left employers with a bad impression while screening the social media accounts of job candidates:

  • Provocative or inappropriate photographs, videos or information
  • Information about them drinking or using drugs or linked to criminal behavior
  • Discriminatory comments related to race, gender, religion, etc.
  • Lies about their qualifications and/or about a absence from work
  • Poor communication skills and/or unprofessional screen name
  • Too frequent posts
  • Negative comments about their previous company or fellow employees or sharing confidential information from previous employers

The CareerBuilder study was based on surveys of more than 1,000 hiring managers and human resource professionals across a variety of industries and company sizes in the private sector.

Synopsis

This Unit emphasizes on:

  • the usage of Facebook 
  • the importance of Linkedin
  • the opportunity of social media to be used for self-advertisement for a relevant job 

List of References

Further Reading

  • Pease, B. & Pease, A. (2006), The Definitive Book of Body Language: The Hidden Meaning Behind People’s Gestures and Expressions. New York: Bantam books.