What You Really Need To Know About Social Media Profiles And Job Searching

Posted by • May 13th, 2011 • 643 Comments

First, don’t make assumptions.

These days, most career development professionals will make a point of telling you to get with it in social media. The idea is that your various profiles are a gateway to a new job. Heartfelt advice about whether or not to include pictures of your last drinking binge or photos of your unmade bed is the new career coaching.

Please, get your social media profiles in order. It’s really your call. Be who you are or be willing to be someone else at work. Whichever decision you make, get your profiles together.

But don’t ever get the idea that using social media effectively will get you a job.

Remember the Philosophy 101 question: “If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone hear it?” The very same thing applies to social media. The odds that someone besides your mother and your own social network are actually going to look at you profile are quite low. For the most part, recruiters and HR folks look you up after they’ve come across your name, not as a way to find you in the first place. Just because you infuse your profiles with career information, you are not guaranteed that anyone will look at it or find it.

There are two aspects to the problem;

  • Recruiters and HR professionals are not trained to find people using the internet. There is an emerging movement (called Sourcing) to get people some professional training. Only a small percentage of those who are charged with hiring have sourcing skills. Most don’t even realize that they need the skills.
  • None of the social media sites (or Google for that matter) make it easy for you to be found. Building resumes that can be found (regardless of format) is still an emerging art. While you can get some good tips about making your resume friendly to an Applicant Tracking System, little is known about how recruiters actually scavenge the web.

The sourcers may find you. You have to make yourself find-able to the others. Here are a few tips that will improve your chances of being found:

  1. If (and that’s a big if) hiring managers come looking for profiles of people for jobs they are trying to fill, they will look for them exactly the way that you use Google. That is, they will search until they have what seems like ‘just enough’. It is imperative that your profile (and resume for that matter) contain the words that they will use for that search. Your best bet is to visit Google and search for people like you.
  2. Examine the LinkedIn profiles of other people with your job. Make sure that you include any relevant key words in your profile. Generally, key words are nouns that describe incremental details of your skills and experience. Your profile ought to have tens of them.
  3. There is some chance that an employer will supplement the resumes and applications it receives through job boards and its website. If you apply for a job online, make sure your social media profiles get updated with some of the language in those job descriptions.
  4. Have a really clear picture of the people you wish would find you online. Tailor the descriptions of your experience to match the kinds of things they are looking for.

It’s early in the social media discovery game. For the foreseeable future, you are going to have to keep your eyes open. Discovering the tricks of getting your resume (or profile) noticed is a time honored job hunter’s tactic. New technology, same game.

Guest Blogger John Sumser, a member of the Glassdoor Clearview Collection, is the founder and editor-in-chief of HRExaminer, a weekly online magazine about the people and technology of HR. Widely respected as an independent analyst, Sumser has been chronicling and critiquing the HRTechnology industry for eighteen years. During that time, he has consulted with more than 100 HR vendors on matters of strategy and positioning in the market. Prior to his involvement in the HR Technology industry, Sumser was a senior executive in Defense Technology. From large scale software development to naval architecture, he was the leader of tech development teams in a broad variety of settings. His passion is the intersection of people and technology.

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  • Guest

    I agree that social media is completely overblown. Anybody who thinks that having a profile on Linkedin or Facebook will help them get a job is sadly mistaken.  You are so right that the person looking you up has to already know that you exist. The chances that a hiring manager looking for someone with your exact credentials would “stumble” upon your profile is slim to none.  Also, the number of connections a person has does not seem to be relevant in a job search.  I know unemployed people with over 200 connections and it does not seem to be helping them. It is always better to have a few good connections that you can trust than many connections who barely know you. Also face to face contact is preferred to connecting on line.

  • Cecelia Passarella

    I enjoy the content a use it primarily to keep abreast of current interests as a portal to web pages that expose me to different ideas and commentary some times even to engage in conversation under the format it is a wonderful medium, however you choose to share it is the shared thoughts that make it a repeat activity.

  • http://twitter.com/recruiterblog Johnny Campbell

    Whilst it is true that most recruiters are not yet trained or skilled in searching the web for public profiles it is a stretch to say “don’t ever get the idea that using social media effectively will get you a job”.  Dell EMEA employ 70 recruiters including 20 dedicated sourcers who scour the internet for profiles and hire thousands of people a year from this method.  Oracle EMEA employ 60 recruiters who do the same thing as do Microsoft, Google, LinkedIn and many others.  The technology companies are well ahead of their SME competitors but they are beginning to catch up and agency recruiters have taken to sourcing in a major way in 2011. 
    If you want to get seen by a major tech multinational, you have a better chance engaging with them through social media.  If you want to get hired by a local small firm, call the owner. 
    Social Media is a two way street, its not all about getting found; there is a huge opportunity for jobseekers to turn the tables and find out where the real jobs are and directly network with hiring managers and the recruiters compiling the shortlists.  Check out this series of video tutorials for more on that: http://www.socialtalent.co/res…
    Information is currency and Google is rich with information on jobseekers, hiring managers and job opportunities. Both sides of the hiring equation should be skilled in finding the other but for now, the recruiters are ahead.  Its time for the job seekers to catch up and take control of their job search.

  • Guest

    I think the point is is that it is always better for a job seeker to try to get to know people on the inside of a company (ie people that they would be working with and for) rather than just recruiters. I'm not putting recruiters down – they have their place in the process, but they are not and should not be the ultimate decision makers. They are intermediaries.  I am not so sure I would want to work for a company that places too much emphasis on a recruiter's opinion.

  • http://twitter.com/CareerCurve Jen Turi

    It is true that using social media to get a job is no guarantee.  But no other search method can guarantee that either. 

    The main points we make to our candidates is that they must create their profiles and follow tips like those above to be found online, they must be aware of what people will find when they google them and ”fix” it if necessary, and they do have to get involved at least minimally (by having profiles). 

    An effective job search campaign includes many different tools and social media is just another to add to the arsenal of a job seeker.  Do people find jobs this way?  ABSOLUTELY!  We have had a number of candidates land their jobs because they were “found” on LinkedIn.  And as a recruiter, the FIRST place I go is to LinkedIn to search for the keywords that match the person I would like to find, down to 100 miles from the zip code where the need exists.  I do not start with ads, job postings or anything else.  I start with social media.  Do not assume that no one will find you on social media unless they've heard of you first.  The one thing I CAN guarantee is that this is not necessarily true.

    As far as number of connections go, anytime you are using social media for anything – advertising, job searching, or industry knowledge – the quality of your connections is far more important than the quantity.  What good does it do you to have 500 connections and none of them are engineers if you are looking for a job in the engineering field? 

    Like Johnny said, social media is a two way street.  Just having the connections isn't going to help you, you need to be communicating with them.  Give something.  Provide value.  Send them articles relevant to something they've mentioned in their profile, answer questions, demonstrate industry knowledge.  But to do this effectively,  your connections need to be people in your field.  The goal is to interact and get to the place where a face to face meeting is the next logical step.

    Social media is not the end all be all but it cannot be ignored either.  Whether we like it or not, it IS a big part of the job search process.

  • Seanparsaee

    Dont look to have recruiters find you. Seek them out. See if they have a profile on linkein and if they are part of any groups. Join and participate in the groups that they are in.

     Once you have done this ask for a connection. Get to know them to the point where they already know a lot about who you are and how you can contribute to their company. That is if you are looking for a job.

    If possible you dont want a recruiter to notice your resume among many. You want them to know that you are actively looking at their company and that you can contribute towards making their company better.

    If you have contacts with others in the group ask them to recommend you.

    Once you have them on the phone give a brief introduction of yourself and let them know why you picked their company and not the other way around. Research the company and tell them something about it that no one else has.

  • Guest

    I don't mean to be cold and rude, but I am actually not looking for recruiters to find me nor am I going to make any special effort to seek them out.  Rather, I seek out people who I have common interests with and who I would like to be connected to. If I find the recruiter has a background that interests me, than I may try to connect, but I do not necessarily care about connecting with recruiters so much. 
     

    Good day.