How to Create a Social Media Profile that will land you your Dream Job

Social media is one of the most powerful self-promotion tools you can engage with in your search for the dream job. It offers you a platform from which you can develop a self-image that appeals to recruiters and companies alike. A 2016 study released by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) revealed that 84% of organisations currently recruit via social media, compared to only 56% who were using it in 2011. So your online profiles matter - but each one needs to be relevant, up to date and regularly engaged with.

Use your social profiles as portfolios

Social media is all about engaging with other users but you can also use your social media pages to showcase the work that you are doing, whether that’s blog posts on LinkedIn, photos on Twitter or videos on Facebook. You can show off what you have to offer and create a digital portfolio of your work, enabling potential employers to see your work immediately. This saves you time and resources as you no longer need to send over huge files of your work to potential employers. It also means that potential employers can see your most recent work as you create it.

Let’s start with LinkedIn

From a job hunting point of view, LinkedIn is the platform that is the most essential. According to the social recruiting platform Jobvite’s 2015 Recruiter Nation Survey, 87% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates, compared to 55% on Facebook and 47% on Twitter. Your LinkedIn page is your digital resume, allowing you to showcase the areas of experience and skillsets that you feel are most impressive or relevant to your job search.

Just as you wouldn’t send a half-finished resume to a recruiter, so too should your LinkedIn profile not be half-finished. Your LinkedIn profile needs to be complete but you also need to ensure that your physical resume and your LinkedIn page are cohesive – there is no point making claims on one that aren’t on the other! Make sure your contact details are easily visible, otherwise chances are people will not get round to contacting you, as well as including a professional looking photo.

Your LinkedIn profile needs to have all your work and education history on it, as well as a reference to your skills and personal interests. LinkedIn also allows you to engage with appropriate groups and people within the industry that you are looking to join. These groups allow you to connect with like-minded job seekers and recruiters, as well as giving you industry insights that you might not be able to find anywhere else. Try and keep the connections you make career-focused rather than random. It helps to demonstrate to recruiters that you are serious about the jobs you are applying for.

Follow up with Facebook and Twitter

Twitter and Facebook can also play a big part in helping you to secure your dream job. Your personal Facebook page allows recruiters to get a sense of who you are as a person. But you need to make sure that your profiles are professional, so ensure there are no incriminating photos on your profile, or increase your security settings. According to the same 2016 SHRM survey, over one-third of organisations have disqualified a job candidate in the past year because of concerning information (e.g. illegal application, discrepancy with application) found on a public social media profile or through an online search.

A warning though - if your profile is switched to maximum security settings, this could be a red flag to recruiters that you have something to hide. It’s a fine line between wanting to hide the evidence and also wanting to remain transparent to employers, so ultimately, it is a personal choice.

Your Twitter profile is so much more than just inane updates from your favourite celebrities. It is a huge networking tool, allowing you to interact and engage with people within your career field and beyond. This in turn helps you to build relationships with people digitally so that, in the future, these relationships can manifest themselves into physical meetings and hopefully, job offers. Jobvite’s same 2015 survey also revealed that 78% of candidates that recruiters hire come from referrals, up from 60% in 2014. So forming relationships with people is one of the fundamental ways in which you should be using your social media platforms.

Write a short, concise bio with visible contact details and a link to your website (if you have one) or other social media profiles. Re-tweet interesting articles and actively engage with other Twitter users who are relevant to the job you are searching for. You can create the persona for yourself on your Twitter feed that recruiters will see. From a job search point of view, make a note of popular hashtags for your particular job area and search for them daily. For example, #FashionJobs, #RetailJobs and #FashionGrads could all link through to new vacancies and opportunities.

Engage with your social profiles

At the end of the day, there is no point having a social media platform if you are not going to use it and actively engage with it. If you don’t like the platform, your profile will lay dormant and will not serve its real purpose. Social media can open up new avenues of recruitment as they provide the perfect springboards from which to develop your digital persona. You want this persona to represent who you are as a person so choose your platform and make sure, however many you have, they are all consistent. Do that, and you might just wind up with a job offer on the table, all through controlling your online image.

At Four Seasons, we recruit for jobs in the fashion and retail sector, from entry level to senior positions. Take a look at our current vacancies here.