By Erinne Ng, AWE Communications and Program Support Intern
If you’re anything like me or most people in their teens and twenties, you’re probably glued to your Instagram and Twitter feeds. Since I only have one year left of university after my internship, I feel an increasing sense of uncertainty about how social media and being online might impact my ability to secure a job. I have heard that it’s more common for employers to hire through platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook Jobs, and even Instagram. And I wondered, are companies using social media as a part of their application and recruitment processes? Curious about the role that social media plays in looking for and securing a job, I reached out to Christine Gertz, Library and Information Specialist at the U of A Career Centre, to find out more.
While having profiles on online platforms won’t hurt your chances at finding a job, it’s more about knowing how to use them correctly. “Picking the correct online presence for what you’re applying for is going to make a huge difference,'' Christine suggested. She emphasized that “you need to have a well developed presence where people tend to look. A way to figure out where they’re looking, is to see where they’re posting jobs and where they’re being cross posted.” For example, if you find a job posted on Indeed, doing a little digging to see if that position has also been posted on LinkedIn can give you a hint of how the employer recruits. If the employer has posted the position on LinkedIn, then it would be a good idea to ensure that your LinkedIn profile is professional. Another tip Christine shared was to use platforms like LinkedIn to conduct searches to find out what employers are looking for in candidates. If your profile is public, make sure that there are keywords included in your bio and experiences that reference what these employers are looking for so that you appear in searches employers conduct. When talking about Instagram and Facebook, platforms that tend to incorporate more of our personal lives, Christine’s biggest piece of advice was to “lock up your privacy settings.” She advised that students keep their personal social media accounts separate from those they are using to search for jobs.
Christine was also quick to point out that, “The main things needed to get a job are still the same. The process still looks the same. You need a resume to get an interview, and you need good interview skills to get the job. An online presence can only help if you have those basic, fundamental skills.” She explained that “people have been saying the resume is going to die for over fifteen years, yet we still see that 99% of employers use it as the main way to hire new employees.” I know that for a lot of us, it’s easy to get caught up in the tiny details when applying for a job, but Christine suggests focusing more time and energy on the basic components of a job application that matter most. A strong resume and cover letter will still be more likely to get you to the interview. While times may have changed with our increased online presence, what we need to get a job is still largely the same.
After speaking with Christine, it became clear to me that while an online presence can certainly help with your job search, it isn’t the biggest factor at play in securing a job. So, while it’s important that we don’t underestimate the impact that an online presence or platform can have on a job search, it’s also extremely important to spend time writing strong cover letters and resumes and preparing for interviews to secure a job. Rather than using your profile to be discovered by employers, we should use the platforms to discover what is out there for us. All in all, being proactive and taking initiative are what’s important, so not being online won’t stop you from getting an offer.
