Want to Get that Job? Stand Out on Social Media

Imagine two candidates for a job. One sends in a very nice resume and cover. No typos. Seems eager. Good on paper.

The other sends a nice resume and cover. No typos. Includes links to their website, their LinkedIn, their Twitter, their portfolio, or their Github. Now recruiters can go exploring: read what they write, look at their designs, scan their code, see what they care about. What the second candidate did was give us a window to peer through so we can see what it’s like working with them. And a window is an excellent, game changing thing to give a recruiter or a hiring manager. It makes you instantly more approachable, no longer just a random name in an applicant tracking system. Which candidate would you rather be?

I advise folks on career moves on a weekly basis as an extension of my free course on Finding a Job and have hired a number of candidates who I "pre-meet" on social media. This is the number one tip for today’s job seeker—be social! Let us get to know you and like you so we can hire you. People like to hire people they’d enjoy being stuck in an airport with—multi-dimensional, engaging, informed people.

So where to start? First, do an honest evaluation of your social footprint. 

1. What accounts do you have, and are they public or private? Do you know all your passwords and are you actively using each?
2. Audit your accounts through a recruiter’s eyes—anything polarizing or angry or any over sharing you need to clean up? Change privacy status on accounts you’re more lenient with—perhaps Facebook or Instagram—but always assume anything social could become public. 
3. Determine your comfort level—what’s your personal interest, and what boundaries do you want to set? Maybe you’re willing to do a LinkedIn profile and make a blog but don’t want to tweet. Consider all your platform options for social sharing as you think through your boundaries. Where do you want to invest time, and how much? 
4. Determine what your social mix will look like—what platforms will you use, and what’s the intention of each? How will you use each as a vehicle to drive your brand? I recommend LinkedIn as the first step and a second platform of choice—a place to showcase your work, such as a blog, web site, or portfolio. If you have room for a third, decide what’s most important between newsy (Twitter), visual (Insta), fresh and short (Snap), video-based (YouTube), long form posts (Medium), or long-tail community building (FB). Each has their place! See what other people who have the jobs you want are doing to be social if you’re not sure yet.
5. Make a decision about other third party communities to join—maybe you want to be active on discussion boards or forums for your industry (eLearning Guild or PMI, for example) or specific sites where you’ve got a much more targeted reach.

Now here’s the thing. If you’re going to be a social job hunter, and I hope you are, you’ve got to turn that audit and reflection into consistent action. Having a LinkedIn with no picture or updates or recommendations isn’t going to help you. Likewise a blog you last published to in 2014 or a YouTube channel with two videos created in one week and zero recent activity.

Consistency is half the battle here—once you know what you’re doing, do it. Write on LinkedIn once a quarter or once a month, tweet a handful of times a day about relevant issues in your industry or to you personally, and make sure we can see your code or design or copy or other work samples without complex hoop-jumping. Invite us in, and give us a reason to come back.

A few tips to help you win at consistency and your social game:

1. Use calendar reminders to keep your content creation or sharing on track. 
2. Consider scheduling apps for social, such as Buffer. Use them and their analytics to your advantage.
3. Find a curated news source that’s tailored to your interests, be it Texture or Flipboard or Linkedin or favorite publications. Set aside time daily to stay current so you have things to talk about in meetings and share online.
4. Share and create content through the lens of: how am I helping people get to know me better? And what message is this content sending? Stay on brand with who you are, your industry and career, and personal content that resonates. If you’re a foodie, don’t hide it—let us see that dimension in addition to your amazing photographs and web site layouts. Run marathons? We want to hear about it—the whole person is always a more interesting candidate to talk to.
5. Ask questions and share what you’re learning. It’s easy to start being social and creating content with the aim of coming across as the expert. That’s great. Humility and learning agility also go a long way. Give us both.
6. Get feedback and test your content. A/B test headlines on posts, run polls or surveys, and ask trusted mentors or colleagues to help you see any blind spots.
7. If you’re finding yourself unable to keep cadence steady, reconsider your exposure in a way that you can do consistently. Inactive Twitter or lapsed FB communities send a worse signal than no presence at all. They say: I once cared, but now, not so much.
8. Help people when you can—social is a two-way street. Reshare or like colleagues’ content as a virtual high five, give recommendations, unprompted, to the superstars you know, and make connections to intro people who would benefit from knowing each other. When you invest in these activities, they compound handsomely over time. And even if they didn’t, it’s the right thing to do!
9. Follow and interact with the companies you want to work at--show them you're interested and listening. Be able to mention recent tweets or posts they've made in your cover letter and when you first engage on the phone. Automatically puts you ahead of other candidates!

Finally, take time to enjoy this work! Being a social candidate gives you a huge leg up on competition that hasn’t yet made a web site or profile or doesn’t want to be public. If you’re having fun while you make your social moves, it comes across in the content and in your social persona. As soon as we see you as a candidate we can’t wait to meet, can an interview be that far behind?