Your Path to Employment

Social Media and Your Job Search

Part of tapping into the "hidden" job market is leveraging social media. It can be a powerful tool in helping you reach your job goals, but it can also just as easily hinder your chances of landing the job you want. Make sure you take some time in your preparation process to look at your social media profiles and see them through the eyes of a hiring manager.

Personal Profiles

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media channels can be great networking tools, but if you are primarily using them for personal use it's time you take a second look to see what image you are putting out there for prospective employers to see. Many employers have a standard practice of looking at an applicant's social media profile before considering them for a position. Make sure it represents you well and has the right privacy settings for your job search.

Some tips to consider when "cleaning up" your personal social media accounts are:

• • Consider a professional picture - pick a professional profile picture that matches the type of work you do. Whether you wear a suit or shorts to work, consider wearing something similar or one step more formal. Also, make sure you crop the picture so it shows you just from the waist up and no farther away.
  • Avoid racist, sexist, and discriminatory comments and references to illegal drugs or activity.
  • Remove or un-tag pictures that make you look poorly or manage your album privacy settings.
  • Remove comments on your wall that are inappropriate.
  • Review your apps to see if they suggest anything negative about you.
  • Review your groups to make sure they are appropriate.

LinkedIn

Social networking can be powerful in a job search and LinkedIn is one of the most important job search tools you will find - now and for the rest of your career. Why? Because it’s the top networking spot with over 500 million users and where employers look for employees, and it's full of job search tools and is designed for a powerful job search.

If you don't have a LinkedIn profile yet, don't worry. Login to your NextJob account and it will walk you through the steps to creating and customizing your account to maximize your job search.

Customer Portal

Everything you need all on one page! We put together a webpage for our customers to keep handy while they go through the job-seeking process. You find the steps in the process to becoming a customer, video library of content, access link to your NextJob account, and even community resources in your area that could be helpful to you. Be sure to keep it bookmarked for quick access! Visit www.employu.org/customer-portal to check it out.