Jobs Online: Tips on how to find a job online

Your personal brand is how you promote yourself. It is the unique combination of skills, experience, and personality that you want the world to see. Personal branding is the practice of marketing yourself and your career as a brand. It is an ongoing process of developing and maintaining your reputation.

Your aim as a job seeker should not be to over sell yourself, but rather to make yourself known as a job seeker online by creating a personal connection with potential employers. As a job seeker you should make your online profile available to potential employers and recruiters who are hiring by presenting a balanced social media presence with business and personal updates.

Each person, as a job seeker, has characteristics that define who they are, how others perceive them and how we see ourselves. As an individual looking for a job you should ask yourself what qualities you want a potential employer or recruiter to know about you and how you will go about sharing this information with them.

social media and job seekers

A good place to start is to understand what type of information should be shared on the various online social media platforms.

Employers and Recruiters: Job Seeker Target Market

Decide who your target audience is during your job search:

• Who do you want your posts to reach as a job seeker and how do you want to reach them. Are you targeting Recruitment Agents and Employers and which industry sectors of employment?
• What message are you wanting to send to the potential employers?
• How are you going to send this message? And
• Where (which platform) are you going to use to share this message?

Recruitment Consultant: What would an IT Recruiters target audience be:

Who would an IT Recruiter in South Africa target, possibly:

• Recruiting Agents who specialize in the placement of recruitment consultants within internal recruiting positions AND
• HR Managers and Recruitment Managers in Corporate Companies.

Message to potential employers and recruiters:

What message would an IT Recruiter in South Africa want to share with potential employers and recruiters, possibly:

• Their extensive knowledge as an IT Recruiter of the the IT recruitment space and IT industry.
• That their personality is professional, friendly and optimistic.
• That as a recruiter they are very strong in sales, able to negotiate and build strong relationships with stakeholders.
• That family is important to the recruiter and the belief in a work-life balance and finally
• That the recruiter is motivated by closing deals

How and where an IT Recruiter can share their professional bio with potential employers and recruiters:

The IT recruiter can write short articles on talent sourcing, sales in recruitment or client relationship management to post and share on LinkedIn. They could share interesting articles regarding recruitment on LinkedIn and Twitter. The recruiter can respond to question posts about recruitment and should only do so if they have value to add. By doing this the recruiter is creating a name for themself  on social media and becoming known within the right circles within the employment sector.

Clean online image: Nurture your online presence as a job seeker and protect your online image.

Hiring and sourcing online: Employers and recruiters

Hiring Managers and Recruiters are increasingly making use of social media as a sourcing tool to screen and recruit potential employees. Recruiters are able to search for job seekers by name on social media and view your online posts, including older posts, giving the recruiter insight into who you are and if you would be the right person that will fit into their company’s culture. In other words, will your personality as an individual employee be in tune with the personality of their organization. Take the time to google yourself and analyze what the search results reveal about yourself.

Online profile: Social Media and presenting a professional image online.

Clean up your social media accounts. Ensure that your permission settings are correct and set them up to ensure that you only allow the persons that you want to view your private posts to see them. It is recommended that you remove any content that could potentially be considered as inappropriate and leave groups that could cause damage to your online reputation.

Always use your real name and change any handles or URL’s that are inappropriate and always keep in mind that your objective is to present a professional image online and at all times.

Content that you should considering removing from your online profile would be political comments, abusive content that was posted out of anger, any content that could be considered to be ‘’adult’’ in nature (social media is not the place to post pictures of yourself in your underwear), content that can be considered offensive or discriminatory, negative opinions about any of your former employers or managers. Deactivate old accounts that you may have. If you still have a YouTube account from your teenage days and no longer make use of it, remove it. Add professional bios about who you are and what makes you unique as a job seeker.

What is a professional bio?

A professional biography is a description or summary of your professional background, educational history, skill set and or achievements.

Job Hunting Research

Once you are sure that you have cleaned up your online presence and you are now presenting a professional image online you can starting doing your job-hunting research. Find relevant job groups, job pages, job tags and influential people in the employment space to follow. Your findings should all be relevant as to where you can find jobs, share content and get professional advice from persons who are knowledgeable and influential within the career space and job market.

Follow up and tune in daily to your researched network. Review job postings, respond to posts only if you have value to add and get your name known on social media. The more you engage with potential employers and recruiters, the more online confidence you will build in your name. By engaging positively and adding value you are allowing yourself to be recognized by potential employers and recruiters as someone who can add value and this could potentially open doors of job opportunity for yourself. Remember to remain friendly and courteous at all times.

LinkedIn for Jobs

A personal website or LinkedIn profile allows potential employers and recruiters to find you readily online. It is important to note that you should be cautious with your online presence or websites and take care as to who your personal details are exposed to.

Recruiters and employers generally do have a database or ATS system but do also make use of a variety of online search techniques in their search for potential employees. A LinkedIn profile is always a good place to start when looking for a job as it is essentially an online CV profile showcasing your previous work experiences and education. Take care when creating and updating your LinkedIn profile and ensure that your online profile is set to be searchable to recruiters and hiring managers. Remember to add a link of your online portfolio to your hard and soft copy CV.  Good luck with your online job search!