It doesn’t matter how competent and hireable you think you are nowadays, but rather the conclusive opinions that your employers formulate based on what information that can locate about you. Stalkerish though it may be, it’s the unfortunate way of our world in the age of the internet. Long story short, if you’re looking to start your career, you’ll want to make your social media pages as appealing to employers as possible. To this end, I offer unto you an article that will guide you in the endeavor of making a better online profile for yourself, thereby improving your chances of landing that dream job!
A must-have for establishing an online profile – the platforms you absolutely need are Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Instagram and Facebook are used by employers to determine what kind of person you are outside of a professional setting; what you look like when you aren’t dressed in professional attire, what kind of interests you have, what kind of people you associate yourself with, and so forth. Twitter is more about your personal interests and what type of people you follow. Keep in mind that these social media sites aren’t going to be what draws the attention of employers, but they’re something for employers who are already interested in you to look at (and trust me, they’re going to look). From this, they can determine if you’re a right fit based on your personality, or if there’s something incriminating about yourself that might give them a reason to not hire you. So don’t worry too much about your casual social media accounts, but perhaps ixnay on posting lewd pictures of yourself or a photo of you bribing a judge or anything like that. Then there’s LinkedIn – might seem like Facebook for workaholics, but I assure you you’re going to want it, for reasons I’d like to get into later in the article. Long story short, employers want to know that you can put on your big kid pants when need be, and LinkedIn is the social media platform that allows you to show them you can.
Believe it or not, this is a surprisingly important one for your online profile. If you still have just a Yahoo account, or god forbid a friggin’ AOL account, it might be time to upgrade. Not only is it just uncanny to have to deal with someone who has these ancient forms of online communication, but it also shows some minor aptitude for technology when you use a more modern format – namely Gmail.
I don’t think I need to tell you not to post nudes as your profile pic or anything like that… unless your life-long dream is to be a pornstar I suppose. That said, you will need some amount of professionalism in all your pictures, though this amount varies from one social media platform to another. On Facebook and Instagram, you can afford to be a bit more casual, however, you might want to get a bit more dolled up for your LinkedIn account, as well as other job-finder platforms. That said, don’t use say, an avatar, or a picture of your cat, or your kids or something. It makes people think you have something to hide… maybe you have a Hitler-stash or a mullet, or you’re Amish, who knows?
As I was saying, LinkedIn es muy importante. It doubles as a professional social media site and a job-search platform. If you’re going to be joining the professional world, it is absolutely critical that you have a LinkedIn account. Sure, social media is fun, but employers need to know that you can turn on your professionalism and that you can do it well. Complete the ENTIRE profile creation process, keep your profile picture professional (business casual at least but this is largely dependent on your chosen profession), make lots of connections to other people and groups, and upload your own resume that you made in a word document (as a show of your technological and Word savvy).
Use your social media as often as possible – post, like, heart, laugh, just get in there and enjoy yourself while doing it. The fact of the matter is, your online profile needs character and participating is the best way to get that character. If you have a nearly blank Facebook or Instagram account, someone might think you’re trying to hide something, or perhaps they’ll think that you’re just not tech-savvy. What’s more, you need as many contacts and connections that you can get your hands on at this beginning stage of your professional life, so get in there, network, and like pages that relate to your chosen profession as well as correlating interests.
A great way to enhance your online profile is by creating your own domain, or in other words make your own website. It’s going to cost a little scratch, but it isn’t too much. What’s more, it allows you to basically have a resume online for anyone to see, and it places said resume high in Google search results when employers are trying to get a look at your online profile. You’ll need to go through a domain name registrar such as domain.com or godaddy.com to name a few, but once that’s done you can be a bit creative and have fun with it, in order to show off your creativity as well as an aptitude for technology.
If you’re like me, you had access to social media way sooner than you were mature enough to. As a result, there might be one or two things from back in the day that you might want to delete, be it a provocative picture, a post from a more rebellious time in your life, or even just too many selfies (let’s be honest, nobody likes dealing with a narcissist). Go way back into your history and look for anything that could potentially be a red flag to an employer. I leave choosing what that is to your discretion.
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