Bender Helper Impact

Last week, the social networking site, LinkedIn, turned seven.

It’s been steadily growing since its inception, and just surpassed the 65 million member mark in April!

The rise of LinkedIn, along with Facebook and Twitter, has restructured the way people are hired in the current job market. Before, human resources only had a resume and cover letter to help weed through candidates.  Now it’s virtually standard practice to Google search every name that comes across their desk.  With this change comes the need for every job seeker (present or future) to become his or her own public relations representative.

A recent study found that 78 percent of employers reported that they used search engines and 63 percent used social networking sites to research job candidates (TheWorkBuzz.com).  Just last August, that number was only 45 percent and will undoubtedly continue to grow (CareerBuilder.com).  With this in mind, it’s important to keep your digital image clean and appropriate for your job search.  This is where you have to think like a PR person.

1. Lock down your messaging
   Figure out the job you want, who you want to inform about it and the skills you want to highlight to get it.  Once you’ve locked down your message and targets, edit your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles completely and consistently.  Be sure that your resume and LinkedIn profile are uniform.  Any glaring differences could cause the hiring manager to be suspicious of your experience and eliminate you from contention.


2. Clean up your image
   If you have drunken pictures on Facebook or Twitter, take them down.  Even if you have everything set to private, the fact that it’s online means it’s vulnerable of being discovered.  Facebook’s privacy settings are constantly changing and they recently had a leak where live chats could be read by any of your friends (ZDNet.com).  Don’t rely on Facebook to block people from seeing your drunken shenanigans, do the legwork yourself and delete them. 
   
   Also, moving forward, think about everything you put online. While you may think your friends are the only people reading your Facebook statuses or tweets, anyone with Google search skills could stumble upon them.  Twitter is now even being archived in the Library of Congress (WashingtonPost.com).  Do you really want the historical record to show how hung-over you were the day after Cinco de Mayo? 


3. Identify and reach out to your target audience
   All the previous steps will passively help while you’re doing a traditional job search.  Submit your resume and cover letter and wait to be Googled.  But, to get a leg up on the competition, you can go a couple steps beyond this to use the new online job market to your advantage. On LinkedIn there are thousands of professional groups that anyone can join.  There are a few that pre-screen applicants, but if they’re truly within your target audience, there shouldn’t be a problem getting approval as you will post things related and of interest to the group.  Once in these groups, you can start answering questions and participating in discussions to show your knowledge in the industry.  When your name is recognized in the field, it will be fresh in people’s minds when a job becomes available.
   
   The same tactic can be applied to Twitter.  Start following prominent people and companies in your field.  If an interesting article is posted, retweet it with your notes.  Doing this consistently will get you noticed by those you retweet and start discussions with. Another bonus with this tactic is that many companies are starting to tweet job openings, instead of opting to pay to have it included on a job board website.  This narrows the job applicants to those who are already actively following them on twitter and engaged in social media.


4. Continually follow up with your contacts
   You can’t expect people to remember you from only a couple points of contact from months ago.  If you’ve reached out to someone, use it as a starting point in the conversation rather than a one-off note for help.  Even after you have a job in hand, keep in touch with them. Eventually, every job is temporary, so it’s good to have those contacts at the ready when you need to search again.  Also, if you only reach out to people while you’re in need of something, they’ll be less inclined to help you out; nobody wants to feel used.

These steps are a basic groundwork to build PR campaigns for our clients.  In today’s social media savvy workplace, it is important to consider yourself a product that you want companies to buy/acquire.  By strategically marketing yourself like a savvy PR person, you’ll stand out in a crowded sea of job hunters.

[Follow Kristal: @kristal_bailey]