Social Media

Graduate Job-Seeker Guide to Social Media – Part 1

With millions of students soon to be completing final exams and handing in their last pieces of coursework – there will shortly be a huge number of graduates entering the job market. As much as university mentors and guidance councillors can prepare students for life as a graduate, there are a few small factors that often get overlooked but can make a tremendous difference when it comes to landing a dream job in many industries including working within
PR Agencies
.

Social media is something that a vast amount of students will already have sufficient knowledge of. Networks such as Facebook and Twitter have become a modern day communication tool, particularly amongst the younger generations. However, what many young people are not fully aware of is the impact that their networking profiles could potentially have on their future job prospects. It is ground that has been well covered in the
online PR
and media world; stories have emerged where employees have been sacked from their jobs as a result of posting inappropriate images or updates on their Facebook pages.

Throughout this article and following into Part 2, I will be outlining ways in which graduates can use social media to their advantage when seeking employment. My points mentioned below are guidelines and general tips that I have picked up after working at a
social media agency
for over a year. However, having observed the way in which social media is impacting businesses, I feel graduates should take note and look at their networking profiles as a self-marketing tool.

1) Profile picture
– This may sound like an obvious point however there will be thousands of graduates preparing to enter the job market with inappropriate Facebook or Twitter profile images. Remember, this will be the first image that a potential employer will see and it should not be distasteful in any way. First impressions count in life and social media is no different.

2) Public photos
– Profile pictures are hugely important however all images are viewable to the public on social networking sites therefore ensuring that you are comfortable with any images of you that can be seen is imperative. If you wouldn’t want your mother seeing it, then it should not be available for a potential employer to view it. Facebook is very efficient when it comes to customising settings so instead of untagging your pictures; amend the settings so that you are comfortable with who is seeing what.

3) Tags
– Remember that on Facebook, users can not only tag you in pictures but they can also tag your name in status updates which subsequently appear on the wall of your personal profiles. Be wary of this just as much as you would with photographs because employers will be interested in knowing what others think of you as well, rude or abusive comments will certainly not be well received.

Part 2 to follow shortly…

Beginners Guide to Google Plus

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 6:36 am and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.