Job Searching Using Social Media

Written by Lauren Lind

Social Media can be used for more than just enhancing your social circle. You can use these platforms while job searching. Here are some tips specifically on how to use Facebook and Twitter to your advantage when trying to find a job: 

• Make people aware that you are looking for a job by posting specifically what type of job you are looking for. They will think of you when an opportunity opens up and can tell you before its posted on job boards.

• Use Facebook to network by utilizing your hundreds of friends and because you know them personally, they will feel more inclined to help you succeed.

• Change your Facebook profile to private and make sure only your friends can see your information in case an employer searches your profile.

• Search hiring mangers on Twitter to help you better understand more about them and then you will be able to tailor your cover letter to their preferences.

• Hyperlink your LinkedIn and Twitter profile information to your resume or just LinkedIn, depending on how you interact online. This gives employers another way to contact you and shows you are social-media savvy.

• Make sure your professional friends can’t see what you don’t want them to see. On Facebook, go under Account, then Friends, create a new list, and customize your privacy settings so professional friends only see certain content. Doing this, your close friends can still keep up with your photos and personal updates, without jeopardizing your professionalism.

• Figure out who you need to know to land a job and retweet their tweets. This may get them to follow you. Unlike most other social networks, Twitter users rarely have private profiles and you can easily instigate conversations with other users.

• Follow all the companies you would like to potentially work for and engage with them, however do not do this if you are not comfortable with them reading your previous tweets.

• On Twitter, join industry chats that are specific to your industry. Search #(keywords for your industry) and you can meet helpful contacts.

• Follow career experts on Twitter and like their Facebook pages and you can get job search advice easily.

• Do keyword searches to see if anyone is looking to hire in your field. Many businesses advertise their job offers on Twitter. Use TwitJobSearch and enter the keywords in their search bar to see all the job opportunities that match your criteria from Twitter.

• Regularly post content that relates to your desired line of work and try showcasing your own work, such as your blog posts, and share other people’s content.

• Use Facebook’s graph search to find people in your network who work in the industry you want to work in. This is similar to LinkedIn’s connections feature, however many people don’t think to use Facebook to their advantage in this way.

• Subscribe to influential industry experts rather than friending them and you can gain insight into their world and that may give you that edge needed.


Hat tip: Alexis Grant with US News, Lilach Bullock with Social Media Today, and Irfan Ahmad with Social Media Today