Written by ContentPowered.com
Facebook isn’t just a haven for marketers and a time sink for over a billion people around the world. It’s also a fantastic – and often detrimental – resource for the job hunt. During this global economic recovery, it’s worth it to make sure every possible angle is in your favor. Fancy some statistics?
- 37% of companies research candidates on social media before hiring.
- 94% of recruiters recruit through social media, including Facebook.
- 51% of companies check to see if you’re a good cultural fit.
If your social media profiles betray you, you’re going to have a much harder time finding a job. Why not take the time to go over your Facebook page and make sure everything is skewed in your favor?
Hide Unprofessional Content
The first thing you need to do is hide unprofessional content from the prying eyes of the headhunters. This includes anything about drug use or drinking, theft or anything else. Hide or delete any content that doesn’t portray you as an absolute professional. If you really must save the content, change visibility so that public unfriended users can’t see it. Additionally, create a user group specifically for any potential career networking friends, and limit what it can see to what you portray professionally. Whenever you friend someone for networking purposes, add them to that group.
Use a Professional Picture
This one is easy; just take a nice, professional picture of yourself and use it as your profile picture. Make sure your cover photo is likewise professional, though it doesn’t have to be anything more than a basic graphic design if you don’t want to customize it. As an added benefit, you can customize the caption of your profile picture to be a call to action, with a link to your resume or CV for any potential headhunters. You don’t necessarily have to be in a suit, so long as you look good and professional in your picture. If your career path is something you can depict in a single picture, that might be a good idea as well.
Unify Your Social Profiles
How many social profiles do you have? It’s a good idea to establish your presence on at least Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. If you think you may use it, a Twitter account may be a good idea as well. However, make sure the information on each is clearly the same, including the same profile picture. This ensures that any headhunter or recruiter looking at your profiles will see that they’re all the same person. This is particularly helpful if you have a website of your own for a personal profile, or if you have business cards to hand out with URLs; they can extrapolate from one profile which others are you. If you have a common name, this is nearly essential.
Fill Out Resume Information
Think about what’s typically on a resume. Location, contact information, skills, education, references. All of this can be found on a social profile, in some form or another. References are harder to pin down, but many recruiters don’t care about your references today. A location and your contact information are both important. Your education history is easy enough to update. Your skills are harder, but you can handle that in a few ways. A personal website is a good idea, or you can upload projects to Facebook if they’re the kind of thing you can showcase online. You can also just customize your interests to suit your intended position.
Upload a Resume
In addition to filling out resume information on Facebook, you can also create a Facebook-based resume. The easiest way to do this is just through Facebook Notes. If you have an external website, it’s a better idea to link to it in your about section.
Be Creative
Over half of all recruiters, when they look at Facebook, are looking to see if you’re a suitably creative person. Of course, this is a difficult statement to quantify. What do they consider creative? Are they reading your text posts looking for humor? Are they checking your About section? Are they looking at your pictures? A lot of it depends on what type of job you’re looking for, and why you’re on Facebook. In any case, any sort of creativity relative to your career path is a good idea.
Treat Yourself Like a Brand
Some of the links in this article thus far have pointed towards advice for businesses, and that’s important. You see, when you’re advertising yourself online, you need to treat yourself as a brand. Most successful entrepreneurs are talented and hard-working, yes, but they’re also very good at managing their personal brand. Even when you’re looking for corporate work, having a personal brand reputation – treating yourself as something valuable – is a great idea.
Follow Company Profiles
All of the above is preparing for this moment; active networking. If you’re looking for a local job, you’re going to need a narrow search. If not, feel free to search globally. Look for any company that works in your industry and follow their page. You might be surprised at how often businesses post about their job opportunities. Even if they don’t, you can still get a good idea of their culture and values from their posts. If a recruiter finds your profile and sees that you follow their company, it’s a point in your favor.
Connect With Industry Influencers
It’s one thing to follow company profiles; it’s quite another to follow the individuals responsible for hiring. This is easier with small businesses, those with smaller pools of active management. Track down and network with recruiters and CEOs, people in charge. All you’re doing is putting yourself out there, making connections and getting the attention of people who can make decisions. They’ll remember your positive interactions when it comes time to hire.
Stay Active and Positive
Setting up all of your profiles does nothing to help you if you don’t use them. That’s why Twitter isn’t highly recommended; it requires quite a bit of activity to do properly, and if you’re not putting in the effort, it’s obvious. Other profiles are more valuable on a static level, but it’s always a good idea to stay active.
Furthermore, you should always stay positive. If every post you make is about the futility of the job search and how much you hate looking for work, what is a recruiter going to think? Chances are they’ll pass you over for an employee with more initiative.
Join Groups
Facebook (and LinkedIn) groups are a great way to keep networking and keep active. You should join groups of professionals in your industry, which will help you network. You should also join groups of job hunters, and build good will by sharing job opportunities when you come across them, particularly if you aren’t looking at that specific job. This increases the odds of other job seekers sharing an opportunity you want with you.