Working: Social media tools aid job search
Creating a strong personal brand online helps land the right job
When James Cavanagh set out on his job hunt several months ago, the 23-year-old immediately focused on a three-pronged strategy that used the power of social media in his favour.
First, he built a strong profile on the networking site LinkedIn that reflected his strengths and highlighted his best attributes. He then researched companies and decision-makers online to learn more about them personally and professionally. Finally, he reached out to ask for a brief meeting or phone conversation and hopefully added them to his LinkedIn account at the end of the exchange.
Cavanagh was soon hired by accounting firm PwC in their graduate rotation program and has been working there for about six months.
“During my recruitment, I was aware that online tools were kind of a bonus, extra way to build out my personal brand,” says Cavanagh, an associate in the consulting group of PwC’s Calgary office. “It gave me the opportunity to expose myself to a larger audience and certainly a different audience than I could in person.”
He gathered valuable information about the people and companies in his field of study and hopefully made some good industry connections.
“At least I took something out of that conversation,” he says. “That authenticity of my LinkedIn (profile) before going into these conversations stressed all my strengths … and that I wasn’t over-representing myself in person or online.”
It’s a valuable lesson in an age when people end up getting fired for not managing their online personal brands. While the Millennial generation is more tech-savvy at building an online brand and using social media tools, sites like LinkedIn have become a fairly standard relationship-building tool for all generations.
“As a campus recruiter, we need to be mindful of some of the technologies these (Millennials) are using and how we disseminate our message,” says James Davidson, a recruiter in the human resources department at PwC. “It’s important that organizations listen and take on the feedback.”
One survey found many Canadians still need to work on tapping into the potential of social media as a means of building a personal brand and marketing themselves to employers, however. A Randstad Canada survey found that while 77 per cent of Canadians have social media accounts, only 27 per cent reported using them for business or work-related purposes. Yet, 61 per cent of Canadians said they know social media can help them find a job and 51 per cent used social media to prepare for a job interview.
Cavanagh says his own online brand strategy helped him find out more relevant information, more times than not.
“In any business, relationships are huge,” he says. “The more they can know about you, your strengths and be more comfortable with you, the more likely they are to give you their business or help out in some small way.”
For employers, the growing trend means a constant effort by their companies and recruiters to maintain their own brands and be conscious of the preference of how different generations communicate.
“These (Millennials) don’t just want to be talked at by our campus recruiters,” Davidson says. “They want to engage in a conversation with us and learn about us via that conversation.”
With the competition for top young talent so fierce — they have to ensure the talent pipeline keeps flowing as the Baby Boomers retire — the messaging has to stand out, show responsiveness, clarity and diversity.
“If we want to hire them, there are six other accounting firms that want to hire them, too,” adds Davidson.
Keeping a professional online presence separate from your personal presence is also critical to presenting a strong brand to employers.