How to Use Social Media for Searching Those Jobs in Cork!
Social Media for job searching has developed over the years to become an important tool to use while you search for employment. While your CV is still very important, it is usually seen by a limited number of people you forwarded to either directly or through an online job application portal or to a recruitment company. Leveraging social media during your search means you can get your CV out there to a much wider audience thus offering much bigger opportunities and hopefully bigger rewards.
LinkedIn is the heavy hitter when it comes to a job search. It is the platform most suited to it, as businesses and recruiters search directly for possible candidates to suit specific jobs. It is essential that once you have your CV ready, to update your LinkedIn profile as you would do an online CV and have your LinkedIn personal profile url listed for example on your CV, cover letters and even on other social media accounts.
A good trick is to search other job profiles similar to your past work experiences and also those profiles of the job you are hoping to land and compare the language and content used to help you come up with your own relevant and appropriate content. Ensure that you use relevant keywords that will make it easy for recruiters to find you.
There are a couple of important features that can be leveraged on LinkedIn.
- Endorsements – this is essentially a personal testimonial, a friend or past colleague, a former manager or client who write a few good words about your work capabilities.
- LinkedIn Groups – these are a great way of raising your profile and keep ultra-current about up-to-date news and affairs in your preferred industry and to follow relevant leaders and companies. Search for local Cork LinkedIn Groups relevant to you and request to join.
X is an informal platform compared with LinkedIn and can be used in a more casual way. For example there would be no need to tweet yourself if you didn’t want to, you could just follow companies or topics and retweet. By retweeting it will show your interest in the current hot topics of a particular subject or career. Keeping your profile professional is a must, a nice headshot photo with a link in the bio to your LinkedIn page is ideal.
Facebook is even more informal again and although largely used by people for connecting with friends and family, it is increasingly being used for more commercial reasons and can be an easy way to ask your personal connections for information and advice about your job search.
The boundaries between personal and professional can be easily blurred on this platform so you need to be careful about the information you post or are tagged in and if necessary clean up any inappropriate content. Employers like to use Facebook to research potential hires usually after an interview and do a little background fact finding on candidates, it is a great way for them to see a person’s interests, creativity and communication skills and to be able to align the person they met at interview or spoke to on the phone with their social profile.
This platform is unique in that it is a good way to establish your own personal brand. It can also help to show that you are social media/technologically savvy. You may want to set up a brand new account specifically during your job search and keep the settings public. For certain careers it is an ideal way to showcase your work, especially in the Web Design and Graphic Design field. As with the others, keep the content professional and appropriate. The key thing here is to use Hashtags so that your photos show up in searches. You can also follow companies of interest to keep updated and show your own interest in their brand too.
So if you are embarking on your job search be sure to check in with our course advisors in Pitman Training Cork who are on hand to help you with advice on Cork Jobs, Career, CV & Interview or training course advice. For your FREE session contact our team in Pitman Training Cork 021 484 9989 /FREEPHONE 1800 532 632, email cork@pitman-training.ie or WhatsApp 086 739 9557 or visit us here.
