How to Use Social Media to Land a Great Job

If you, like nearly 40 percent of American job-searchers, don’t ever update your resume, you need to be aware of its modern equivalent: social media. According to research by recruitment firm HiringSolved, only a quarter of job-searchers update their resumes more than once a year, if at all. This isn’t symptomatic of a widespread laziness in the working world, though – it’s because of what hiring has evolved to become.

“Gone are the days of feverishly updating your resume and applying to job after job,” Shon Burton, CEO of HiringSolved, told Business News Daily. “Today’s top candidates are much more passive. They are willing to wait for the right job to land in their lap and almost expect recruiters and hiring managers to contact them. In 2014, we expect more companies to ditch the traditional resume in favor of new, unconventional hiring methods that better reveal a candidate’s true talents and long-term hire favorability.”

The publication asserts companies are increasingly looking for candidates based on social media profiles, or looking into those they find on traditional resume databases via research into social media.

“Using a social media profile as a resume will be the new normal for hiring in 2014,” Burton told Business News Daily. “Social profiles often have more accurate, updated information about a person’s expertise, providing a more complete picture than a resume alone.”

Knowing how hiring seems to be headed in 2014, job-seekers need to know how to create a professional and alluring social media profile that will catch the attention of recruiters and look good to hiring managers doing social media research. Here’s how:

1. Keep an Eye on Google

Searching for yourself on Google – frequently – isn’t indulging your vanity, it’s good business sense. Make sure, if your name is common, that you do in fact appear high up in search results. There are many guides available for precisely that purpose, and professional Internet activity can help on its own. You should be able to find yourself on Google with your name and location, if not your name alone. Hiring managers don’t want to see that someone is invisible on the Internet, but rather want a new look at who a job-seeker is outside of his or her resume.

If what comes up first on Google is something you’d rather not have potential employers see, determine whether you can take it down yourself. Often, a misguided MySpace profile from high school is easy to remove.

2. Get Professional on Social Media

If you don’t keep your social media profiles updated, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Make sure you have recent contact information, like a reliable email, as well as job information and work experience. The research HiringSolved conducted showed 71 percent of respondents who had social media accounts don’t include professional information on their profiles. A quick rundown of where you’ve worked and what you do is appropriate on all social media platforms, not just LinkedIn. Some platforms provide fields for this, while a few words of well-placed description will do for others.

3. Network Online

When a hiring manager looks for your online footprint, they’ll be impressed if you are a valuable participant in industry discussion. It’s often a good idea to join a forum for people in your field, and to contribute as well as you can. This shows you have a passion for your work that transcends your schedule – as long as you’re not posting on company time. Being a part of professional groups can also lead to offers from particularly intrepid recruiters looking for people with a specific skill-set to fill a difficult position.