There are seven ways to discover opportunities, get in touch with companies and make yourself noticeable to recruitersCarry out an auditKnow your privacy settingsKeep it professionalFind job leadsFill out your profileNetworkLeverage social media
A billion people logged into Facebook on a single day last week, making it the first time that so many members used the world’s largest online social network in a 24-hour period. The reason for this outburst was that job recruiters are using this network to share job leads and discover candidates. According to a 2015 Pew Research study, Facebook makes an appealing source of hiring and research is due to the fact that 70 percent of Facebook users engage daily, as compared to only 13 percent of LinkedIn users. While LinkedIn is considered to be the professional network place to be for many job seekers, it is not the only social network that recruiters look at. 66 percent of recruiters were reported as using Facebook for recruitment, according to Jobvite’s 2014 Social Recruiting Survey. If you are currently looking for a job or plan to do so in future, use Facebook to network and discover job opportunities by knowing how to put your best foot forward.
Carry out an audit
Go to your favorite search engine or Google and search for your name. Make a note of what comes on the first page of search results. There are chances that you might see something that says “[Your name] Profiles | Facebook.” When you click on this link, you will find the Facebook profiles of people with your name. Check out your status updates next. If your posts has a globe next to the date, it means your update is public. This would allow anyone and everyone to see your update and comments added by others. If you wish certain status updates to be private, then you need to change your settings by clicking on the inverted triangle and change the post to “Friends.”
Know your privacy settings
Facebook is known for changing privacy setting criteria. It would be wise for you to have a look at yours, if you haven’t seen it in a while. You can change privacy settings for “Who can see my stuff,” “Who can contact me” and “Who can look me up.” Adjust the settings, if you do not wish people to search for you by your phone number or email. You can also remove that criteria to avoid your profile from showing up in search engine results. Lisa Brown Morton, President and CEO of Nonprofit HR says “Job seekers think that their profiles on platforms like Facebook are private and that hiring managers can’t find them. This is not always the case.” It is good to know your settings, but it is more wise to be careful about what you post.
Keep it professional
Morton says “Oversharing and acting unprofessional is also a common mistake many job seekers make. As a rule of thumb, if you wouldn’t show it [to] your grandmother or put it on your résumé, you shouldn’t put it on social media.” Avoid sharing inappropriate or provocative photos, do not use obscene language or speak ill about your past or current employer.
Find job leads
Even though Facebook is not a job site, you can make use of its Groups feature to find people posting jobs in your field and location. Chris Russell, Recruiter and Founder of CareerCloud, suggests to search Facebook using your city name and the word “jobs” to discover groups that share job leads.
Fill out your profile
If you are going to use Facebook more actively for your job search, then one way to improve your profile is to add previous work experiences and professional skills to the “About” section of your profile.
Network
Ensure that you have added your high school and college information to let others know about it. Join Facebook groups for alumni as well. Be a part of discussion in groups or communities related to your occupation, and “like” a company’s page or join its career group to have communication with employees that handle those accounts. To know who works at your dream company, you can use Facebook for your search. Type “people who work at {insert name of company}” in the Facebook search bar. You can see who works there and who your mutual friends are.
Leverage social media
“By failing to have an active digital presence, job seekers miss opportunities to build up their professional profiles and find job opportunities their competition is likely taking advantage of”, Morton says. Those who are not active on social websites will definitely be at a disadvantage in comparison to socially active savvy job seekers. Social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are used everyday by many people. Your connections with people on these networks if used correctly could mostly likely develop it into a new job. However, keep in mind that companies like to hire referrals and people they know.
