As a savvy job seeker, you know the importance of keeping up-to-date on social media to build your network. You may even know that social media as a recruiting tool is on the rise — a recent Come Recommended blog entry, The State of Social Media Recruiting, highlights a Jobvite survey that shows that almost 90% of employers either use or plan to use social media for recruiting. Additionally, a review of current social media in the survey indicates that LinkedIn is the top site for companies hiring directly, followed by Twitter and Facebook. 
Given all of this, understanding how social recruitment works is essential; understanding an employer’s social media recruitment tactics can help you be more proactive and, most importantly, get noticed. A recent article in The Guardian offers five tips on how to use social networking to connect with potential employers:
1. You don’t have to be “looking” to be looking
Jared Goralnick, founder of email management service AwayFind, says it’s worth it to update your LinkedIn profile often due to the networking site’s “predictive algorithms that can tell when someone is looking to move on, when someone starts updating their profile in a certain way.” This, he says, can help put you when employers are recruiting.
2. Build your own work brand, but be judicious with it
Present yourself on your LinkedIn profile as you would on a paper resume, incorporating key search terms and keeping experiences concise. Also, link to blog posts or articles that are relevant to your field, as well as to your other social media profiles (only if they are appropriate and professional).
3. Strike up conversations with potential employers
Lucian Tarnowski, CEO of social recruitment consultancy Brave New Talent, says participating in these “talent networks” is essential as they help people “keep themselves open.” Joining professional networks and interacting with potential employers helps you connect with others in your field and put you on the radar of smaller employers who maybe have a weaker social presence. “Most jobs are in smaller businesses,” said Goralnick. “And they’re not using that level of recruiting.”
4. Understand the pros and cons of different networks
LinkedIn helps employers who are looking to fill a specific role, though Facebook might be more helpful to gain a number of professionals because of the power of community on that network. Twitter seems to be more popular within certain industries like media, technology, advertising, and PR. Though not widely incorporated into recruitment strategies yet, Twitter allows you to communicate directly to employees in a company for which you want to work.
5. On the web, if it can be known, it will be known
Social Intelligence, a company highlighted in a recent New York Times article that is used by companies to search the web for information about potential candidates, reportedly gets most of its information from “non-social internet use.” This non-social use includes comments on blogs or eBay activity record, much different than the information people willingly share through Tweets or Facebook status updates. So remember, being professional online is more than just banning drunken pictures or derogatory Tweets.
Social media and online networking is not just a trend in your personal life but also in your professional one — with more and more employers turning to the web to recruit, it’s crucial that you not only portray yourself professionally but make yourself visible.
How do you use social media in a job search? Let us know!
