Social Media Can Make or Mar Your Job Opportunity By Vincent Adeoba Oluwadamilola
A friend who got a job in a multinational recently shared his experience with me. One of the things he said that caught my attention was that staffs of the company were going to LinkedIn to view his profile from time to time. He would have lost the job if he is to be someone that posts questionable contents. Employers don’t just check your LinkedIn profile, they make sure they check all your social media accounts.
Since three young undergraduates shut down the traditional recruitment industry a few years ago, companies have been using online tools and platforms to recruit and social media is one them. Social platform is not just a collection of websites, it is a universe on its own. Facebook has over 2.1 billion users, YouTube 1.5 billion users, WhatsApp 1.3 billion users while LinkedIn boasts of 260 million users.
The amazing thing about social platform is that beyond the opportunity to connect and meet people. It has become a recruitment tool both for recruitment agencies and companies. Most employers today are using social media to source the right candidates, which means it should be a big part of your job search strategy both when you are on campus and after graduation.
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I know a lot of people that got their job via social media. All they did was to connect with top executives in a firm, engaged them in conversations and talked to them about what they can offer and from there they were invited for an interview. While it may be difficult to catch up with these top executives offline, social media is a nice place to get their attention.
On the other side, imagine getting to an interview room and one of the interviewers welcome you by calling you “DonFlexy” instead of your real name. Only for you to remember that you haven’t deleted all the nude pictures, pictures of you wearing a singlet with ladies on your lap from your online photo album. No company will want to employ someone with questionable characters not to talk of having indecent pictures on Facebook, Instagram and others or having contents full of grammatical errors.
The truth is that companies now do social media checks on candidates going through their recruitment process. Many candidates have lost job opportunities because of the content they have on their social media. While some got their job because their employers were impressed with the content they saw on their social media profiles.
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Posting or allowing people to tag you questionable contents on social media could kill your chances of getting a job. What you post could also propel your application to the top of the stack. Social media platforms are a great place to share accomplishments and volunteering activities with your potential employer both while you are on campus and after.
According to a 2017 CareerBuilder survey, “70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates before making a hiring decision. And 57 percent of hiring managers are less likely to interview someone they can’t find online”.
My advice:
Always share contents on new developments in your field
Double check for spelling and grammatical errors
Contribute to important conversations
Don’t be a jack of all trade on social media
Avoid attacking people’s personality
Have a nice profile picture and talk about your experience and achievements
Social media is here. It’s not going away; it is not a passing fad. Be where your potential employers are: in social media.
