Using Social Media in Getting an IT Job

1 | P a g e www.completeitprofessional.com/

Complete IT Job Guide - Social Media

What Is Social Media?

Social media, or social networking, is a term used to describe the websites and services that

have a social aspect to them. You’ve probably heard of a few of them. Facebook, Twitter,

LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram – these are all examples of social media websites

that are available for you to use.

Have you ever thought that you can use some of them for your job hunting? Not just for

personal connections and socialising, but to actually help you find and get jobs? Well, it’s

possible! I’ll detail some of the strategies and things you should know in this chapter.

Why Should I Use Social Media in My Job Hunting Process?

There are a few reasons you should consider these social media websites in your job

hunting process. The main reason is privacy. Anything that you put on the internet is most

likely available for others to see, with a bit of searching. Drunk or embarrassing photos of

you may be available on the Internet for employers to find – obviously not something you

want to happen. You need to be able to control what is visible to the public and what isn’t.

This is where a bit of knowledge and control about your social networking activities.

The second reason is that it is a highly effective way of finding jobs and making

connections. You can use these services to connect with people in the industry, improve

your knowledge about job roles and companies, and get access to job postings that may not

be available in other areas. Adding a social media part to your overall job hunting strategy is

a great way to improve your chances of finding a job – just make sure you’re spending your

time looking for jobs, not browsing your friends’ photos!

If you’ve subscribed to the Complete IT Job Guide at

www.completeitprofessional.com/jobguide, you’ll have access to even more resources on

the job searching process, chapter summaries, videos, eBooks and checklists.

Facebook

Facebook is probably the biggest social network of them all. It’s been around for quite a

while and has hundreds of millions of users. It lets people share photos, videos, interact with

each other and map out their online life using events and their profile timeline.

While it does seem like a very personal website and not very job oriented, there are ways

you can use it to help your job search and some things you need to be aware of.

How Should I Set Up My Profile?

As I mentioned before, the main reason to consider your social network is the privacy.

Essentially, anything that you put on Facebook can be seen by the public (depending on

http://www.completeitprofessional.com/jobguide


your privacy settings). Facebook has added further options to their privacy settings over the

last few years, so you have more control over who sees what.

There are a few things to consider when setting up your profile.

Don’t share anything you don’t want employers to see. This should be a

consideration even when you’re not job hunting. You should keep your Facebook profile

family-friendly and job-friendly. This means you shouldn’t post any status updates that

are inappropriate for work, such as complaining about work, co-workers, or anything that

may be offensive. You should keep your pictures private to only allow friends to see

them.

Remove or hide any content that others have shared with you and that appears on

your profile. Facebook currently lets you send pictures, videos and links to other people

and make it publicly visible, so you may need to review these to check if they are

appropriate.

Check that any groups, pages, or apps that you are associated with on Facebook are

appropriate and acceptable by an employer. This doesn’t mean you need to remove

everything from your page and make it impersonal. It’s just another way of removing

offensive and inappropriate content from your profile. Groups that may seem funny at the

time may not put you in the best position.

Privacy Settings

Facebook has many options when it comes to privacy settings. I highly recommend that you

go and explore the options that are available.

Currently, they are available by clicking on the cog icon (the circle) at the top right of the

main menu, and selecting Privacy Settings. Facebook changes its layout every now and

then, but as far as I know this shortcut should remain the same.

This image shows the main Privacy Settings page in Facebook.


You have many options here that can be changed, such as future posts, activity log, and

searching. You can also change options in the Timeline and Tagging, and Blocking section

of this page, as well as inside any photo albums you’ve created. The settings here come

down to your personal preferences, but for job searching, my preference is to set most of the

options to Friends only – if they’re my friends, they can see my content, otherwise they can’t.

The most important sections to hide from public viewing are photos, profile details

(religious and political views, age, etc), and posts. These can all be controlled from within

Facebook.

Should I Get Two Profiles?

Another option which I’m seeing used more and more lately is the concept of having two

profiles. Some people have two Facebook profiles – one profile which is personal and for all

their friends, the other is just for work or business colleagues.

This can be a good idea if you have a lot of connections or people that you know, as it helps

to keep the two lives separate. However, the privacy settings would still need to apply. You

could make your personal profile completely private, so that your work profile is the only one

that comes up in search results.

Personally, I only have the one profile, and I keep it to mostly friends (mostly, because I

have a few work colleagues in there who I probably could call friends). This comes down to

personal preference though.


How Can I Use Facebook For Job Searching?

Facebook is more than just looking and photos and finding out what your friends are doing.

You can actually use it to find a job. There are some common ways and some more creative

methods that you can use in this process. Remember, every little bit helps, and if you really

want a job then you shouldn’t be afraid to try a new avenue or new method of finding the job!

Networking

Facebook’s strength is the ability to connect and socialise with other people. You can use

this to your advantage by connecting with people on Facebook. Due to the personal nature

of Facebook, it’s most likely going to be friends and co-workers to begin with, but you can

still expand.

Making your job search public is a good way of getting the word out that you’re looking for a

job. It lets your friends know that you’re looking, and it can also appear on their friends news

feeds and can spread pretty quickly. If you say you’re looking for a new role as a Database

Administrator, for example, and someone you know has an opening, it can lead to a job

interview. It’s a great way to find jobs that are not otherwise available.

Don’t do this while you’re at work or if there is any chance of your employer seeing it though!

If you say you’re looking for a new job while you’re at your current one, it won’t sit well with

the boss or the company!

Use Groups and Pages

Join related groups on Facebook and follow company or special interest pages that are

relevant to your area. These can help connect you with people in the industry and lead you

into jobs that weren’t available in other ways. You can find out more about your field, have

discussions with people in other roles, and just improve your knowledge overall about your

career. There are many groups and pages on Facebook that cover a variety of topics.

Look Out For Advertising Campaigns

Facebook makes a lot of their money by the advertisements that appear on the page. Many

of them appear on the right side of the page and are actually quite targeted – they are

filtered based on your profile information. If you start to notice them, you might find some ads

that appear are for jobs or companies advertising for positions that are available. If you’ve

got your interests as anything to do with IT, or that your job is something in IT, then you may

find these kinds of ads appearing on the side of the page.

Try to take more notice of them as you use Facebook. You might find a job advertisement

that seems attractive to you – click on the link and find out more. It could be a great

opportunity.

Create an Advertising Campaign

Advertising actually works both ways. If you can see targeted ads about companies, they

can see targeted ads about you. Facebook has the ability to create an advertising campaign

about a web site or a profile.

You can create an advertising campaign about yourself – put in a headline, a professional

profile shot, and a short description about looking for a job. You can link this to your personal


profile. Set up some filters to make it show to certain kinds of people (e.g. people in your

local area) and away you go.

If you’re feeling extra creative, you can set up a web page résumé (as mentioned in the

Résumé section), and link your Facebook ad to that site. When people see your link and

click on it, it takes them to your web site résumé, which promotes you and could even have a

contact button. How awesome would that be?

Use the Facebook Social Jobs Feature

As of November 2012, Facebook has released a Social Jobs App. This is essentially

Facebook’s version of a job board. You can enter keywords, categories and locations, and

show the results from a few different job boards such as Monster and US.jobs.

It has similar functionality to these external job boards but is integrated with Facebook. It’s

still new, and as I’ve been employed from the time of launch to the time of writing, I haven’t

used it yet, but it shows promise and adds to the list of methods to use to find a job.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the social network for professionals. It’s used to connect with people you know

and people you’ve worked with. It lets you set up your profile similar to an online résumé,

and lets you follow companies to keep up with the latest news.

I think it’s a great way to help get a job in the IT industry. Setting up a LinkedIn profile is

almost a must these days, especially for IT professionals who do a lot of work online. Let’s

take a look at what’s involved in setting up and using LinkedIn.


If you haven’t got a LinkedIn profile already, go and set one up. Visit www.linkedin.com and

sign up. Make sure you use an email address that is professional and not related to any

company (a generic Gmail or similar address would do). If you leave a company, you’ll lose

the email address, and therefore access to the LinkedIn account.

Now you’ve got an account, it’s time to set up your profile. Think of it as an online résumé. It

should reflect your employment and education history. LinkedIn is constantly adding new

features, but the main ones you should fill out are:

Photo

You should have a photo on your profile. This will help you in search results and will look

more professional when connecting with people. Make sure it’s an appropriate photo though.

Consider what you’re wearing and doing in the photo to see if it is appropriate for job

hunting. It should be of your face and should make you look professional.

Title

Your current title should go here. If you don’t have a job, I would suggest something

descriptive such as “Seeking New Opportunity” to inform people you’re looking, or something

like “Experienced Network Administrator” to demonstrate your skills and experience (the title

would depend on your experience and knowledge, of course). If you don’t have experience,

you could use words like “Qualified” or “Graduate”.

http://www.linkedin.com/


Also, you might see people with longer and more descriptive titles, such as “John Smith –

Experienced Team Leader With Proven Track Record Of Motivating Staff And Achieving

Results In Any Business Area”. While this may seem helpful, these long descriptions don’t

belong in the title and actually clutter your profile. Keep the descriptions and sales pitch to

your summary.

Including certifications is fine. If you have certifications, it’s good to include those. I would

suggest only including your highest one or two certifications. If you’ve got a few CompTIA

certifications, CCNA, CCNP, MCTS and MCITP, you don’t need to include them all in your

title. Using the CCNP and MCITP should be enough. They can all go in the special

Certifications section anyway.

Location

This is where you’re from. It’s used in search results and can help narrow down the job

search results. If you’re based on the west coast of the USA, job search results may not

display jobs in the UK, for example.

Summary

This is where you describe yourself, your strengths, and what you’re looking for in your

career. It’s similar to the Summary section in a résumé that we went through in an earlier

section. It should be a few sentences long, and it should describe yourself and your career.

You can write it in third person or first person. I’ve seen both and I believe it comes down to

personal preference. Third person is where you write it from the view of someone else

(“John Smith is a highly skilled network technician with more than seven years experience

working on various systems in the New York area”), while first person is where you write it as

though it comes from yourself (“I am a highly skilled network technician with more than

seven years experience working on various systems in the New York area”).

Experience

This section is quite similar to the Experience section in your résumé. It should list each of

the companies you’ve worked at, the start and end dates, your role at that company, and a

description of what you did there.

Similar suggestions can be applied to this section from your résumé. Focus on

achievements rather than duties, which means you should write what you achieved and what

results you got for the company, rather than the duties of your job. Use bullet points if it is a

long section and if it helps the layout.

I believe LinkedIn automatically sorts the jobs for you, based on the start and end month that

you supply. It lists the present roles at the top, and works backwards from there. You’re

allowed to have more than one present role (I’m a consultant so I have one role for my

consulting company and another for the client I’m currently working at).

Certifications

This section can also be filled out similar to your résumé. You can enter the certifications

that you have achieved into this section, along with dates, locations, and license numbers.

You can enter all certifications you have here. This is done partly to show off what you have

learnt and accomplished, and partly because they come up in LinkedIn search results and


filters. Adding your certifications here will allow potential employers to see what you have

achieved.

Skills & Expertise

This section can be filled out using information from your résumé. You can enter up to 50

skills (at time of writing) which appear as separate entries in this section. They can be both

technical skills (e.g. Java, SQL, Linux administration) as well as non-technical skills (project

management, business analysis).

LinkedIn also has a great feature called Endorsements. It lets your connections endorse you

for each of your skills, essentially saying “yes, they have that skill and are good at it”. It’s like

a vote for you having the skill. It shows the reader where your strengths are, according to

others. Skills with the most endorsements appear at the top of the list. They are also used in

search results, so make sure this section is complete and correct.

Education

The Education section is used for non-certification education. Universities, colleges and high

school can be entered here. Similar to the certification section, you can enter details of the

school, the dates, fields of study, as well as societies and grades. This can be used as a

filter in the job search process so make sure it’s filled out correctly.

How Can I Use LinkedIn For Job Searching?

As this website is focused on professional connections and job finding, there are many ways

to use LinkedIn for finding a job.

Find and Follow Connections

The main purpose of LinkedIn and probably the most effective activity you can do is to

connect with other people. LinkedIn allows you to find people and become “connected” to

them, which links your profile to theirs, allows you to see updates from them, and to contact

them if needed.

Most people connect with others on LinkedIn that they know through their working lives or

personal lives. You can be connected with people you currently work with, people you used

to work with, teachers, friends, and other people in the industry. The reason to connect with

other people on LinkedIn is to build your professional network. It’s the online version of the

networking concept we looked at earlier in the guide. Getting to know people can help you in

the future.

You can help them out if you have opportunities or if they have needs you can fill, and they

can provide similar assistance to you. It’s a good way to find out about jobs and can be used

in your job search to get jobs you otherwise wouldn’t hear about. Knowing someone at a

company you’re looking to get hired at is a great way to help your chances.

Follow Companies

You also have the ability to follow companies on LinkedIn. They are similar to Pages on

Facebook, and are the official representation of a company on LinkedIn. The companies

often publish news and articles, but most importantly for you, they publish job opportunities.

This is done in the form of “now hiring” posts – a notification will appear on the page saying


the company is hiring a certain position in a certain area. This is a great way to get exposed

to more jobs that are available.

As well as finding company job postings, you can also get up to date on company news. You

can find out what they are doing, what news they are sharing, who’s working there, and all

kinds of information that can be helpful when going for a job or during an interview.

Set Up a Permanent Profile Link and Use This on Your Résumé

Your profile on LinkedIn will be generated with a random identification number. It’s not a very

attractive or easy to remember address. However, LinkedIn will allow you to claim a name

for your profile.

You can select a unique name for your profile, which will link to your profile in a more reader-

friendly and easy to remember way. There are options on your LinkedIn page to select this.

It has to be unique on the site though – there can’t be two people with the same “jsmith”

page name.

Choose one for your profile. Try to include your real name (e.g. johnsmith) or a variation of it

(jsmith, johns, johnsmithNYC). From now on, you’ll be able to link to this from wherever you

like – LinkedIn will tell you the exact link you can use.

Tip – Adding a link to your LinkedIn profile, using your newly created professional profile

name, onto your résumé, is a great way to improve your résumé and provide the potential

employer with even more proof you’re the one for the job!

Use the Job Search Feature

LinkedIn also has an in-built job searching feature. It works very similar to the job boards

we’ve looked at earlier – you search for a role, you get shown some results, and have the

ability to filter it.

The job search section is shown at the top of the screen:

Results for companies are shown on a new page:


There are a few benefits of using the LinkedIn job search over other job search tools:

Network connections – For each job entry, there is a note that says how many of your

connections are at each company. These are both first level connections (people you’re

directly connected to) and second level connections (people your connections are

connected to). This can help in deciding which jobs to apply for or to help you get in

touch with people you might know that work there.

Further criteria – The job search has all the standard criteria that other job boards have,

such as title, keywords and location. It also has the ability to filter on jobs related to your

first or second connections, companies, dates posted, salary, job function, industry and

experience level. This is quite a detailed way of looking for jobs and can help you find

exactly what you’re looking for.

Adding this feature to your job hunting search is another good way of finding jobs that aren’t

shown elsewhere.

Join and Participate In Groups

There is also a feature on LinkedIn known as groups. They are areas that people with

common interests can interact and participate in discussions. It can help you learn new

things, keep up with the latest happenings in your field, find out about companies and

people’s opinions on certain topics.

It can also help you get a job. Finding jobs and getting in touch with people on LinkedIn

groups is a good idea. The thing to remember is you have to give before you can receive. It’s

usually more effective to join the group, read some posts, and provide some value to the

group before you ask for jobs and requests. It will build your trust and relationships, which is

the aim of using LinkedIn.


Twitter

Twitter is one of the most popular social networking sites in the world. It’s up there with

Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as one of the most used ways of communicating with

others.

In case you haven’t heard of it (or maybe you have and don’t know what it is), it’s a “micro

blogging” social network site that allows you to socialise with others. It allows you to publish

“tweets”, which are small snippets of text, limited to 140 characters, and published to a list of

people known as followers.

You have people that you follow, so you receive their updates. You can also have people

that follow you, that see your updates. You can provide links, categorise tweets using

hashtags, and have conversations with others.

Let’s discuss how it can be used for what you want – finding jobs.


Setting up a profile is quite easy. Go to the website at www.twitter.com, and sign up for a

profile. Complete the sign up process and you’ll receive an account.

Your username needs to be unique, and it’s how people identify you on Twitter. Usernames

are referred to by using the @ symbol. If you ever see this symbol next to a piece of text, it’s

possibly referring to someone’s Twitter profile. For example, my profile is complete_it_pro,

but it’s referred to as @complete_it_pro. These often link to someone’s profile.

Your profile should contain a few things:

Your name. Your username may or may not contain your name, depending on the

availability and the one you chose. Either way, you should specify your name on your

profile.

Biography. You should include a bio – a short summary of you, your experience, your

goals or what you do. Some people use a few sentences, sometimes a single sentence,

sometimes a few single words to describe you and your skills. It’s what people see when

they view your profile. It should match to your skills and your purpose for being on

Twitter.

Photo. Including a photo is a great way to complete your profile. It shows you’re a real

person and puts a name to a face, which is helpful for job searches.

My Twitter profile currently looks like this. It’s got a logo, a name, and a description.

http://www.twitter.com/

https://twitter.com/complete_it_pro


How to Find Followers?

Followers are the lifeblood of Twitter. If you have followers on Twitter, you can connect with

them, see their stories and be exposed to jobs. There are a few ways you can find followers

on Twitter:

Twitter search. Twitter has a Search feature at the top of the page, which allows you to

search for keywords. These searches will show people’s tweets that match keywords.

You can use this to find other people in your field or area of expertise.

Hashtags. People use hashtags to group and categorise their conversations and tweets.

A hashtag starts with the hash # character. For example, using the hashtag #chicago in

a tweet indicates it’s related to Chicago. You can click on the hashtag and you’ll see a

list of tweets that also mention that hashtag. The tag #chicago may not be useful to you

– other tags such as #job or #career or your field may be more appropriate for finding a

job.

Followers of followers. If you have a few followers already, you can go into their

profiles and see who is following them. Chances are that they have similar interests. You

can read their profiles and follow them, which expands your list and get you in touch with

even more people.

External catalogues. There are several websites outside Twitter that categorise Twitter

profiles and allow you to search them. I’ve used a site called Twellow before, at

www.twellow.com. This lets you search for followers in certain categories, and if you like

their profile, you can follow them. This is another way of finding Twitter followers and is

similar to the inbuilt Twitter search.

How Can I Use Twitter For Job Searching?

Twitter is a website that has many uses. You can get to know people, you can read links and

news stories about many different topics – and you can use it to find a job. This can be done

in a few ways.

Get more followers. I mentioned a few ways to find followers above, but the more you

have, the more chance you have of finding a job. They do need to be relevant, however.

Following celebrities won’t get you hired – following professionals and job agencies will.

Keep track of job-related hashtags. People and companies use hashtags on Twitter

and they can be used to group posts. Searching for hashtags that relate to jobs, such as

#hiring, #job, #jobs or #jobsearch can be a good way to find people who are offering

jobs.

http://www.twellow.com/


Join in the conversation. Twitter allows you to have public conversations with people

using your tweets. If people are having a conversation on a topic, don’t be afraid to jump

in and let your voice be heard. Make sure you show respect and don’t offend people.

The aim here is to get your name out there. People will see your communication, click

your profile and read about you. You can get exposed to jobs this way as well.

What about the Other Social Media Websites?

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter aren’t the only social media websites out there. There are

many other websites that offer content and have a social factor:

Google+

Google+ is Google’s endeavour into the world of social networking. It’s simple to use,

integrated with many of their services, and operates similar to other sites. I haven’t had a lot

of use with it, but you can use the same principles that apply to Facebook on Google+.

Ensure you are respectful of jobs and employees, connect with others, and keep it

appropriate for work.

Instragram

Instagram is a photo capturing and sharing service that was recently bought by Facebook.

You may have seen the photos appear on your Instagram feed or Facebook feed – probably

of food or scenery.

While Instagram has its uses, I don’t believe it serves much purpose in the job hunting world.

I don’t think the features that Instragram offers are useful or geared towards those looking

for a job. Happy to be proven wrong though – if you have any suggestions on how it can be

used, let me know.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a relatively new social site that allows users to create groups of useful images

and share their collections. Similar to Instagram, it does have its uses and is gaining in

popularity, but I don’t think it has a lot of use for the job hunting process.

YouTube

YouTube, the popular video sharing site run by Google, allows users to upload videos, rate

and share them. Channels can be set up, which are essentially a profile of a user’s videos.

YouTube can actually have some use in the job hunting world. If you have a passion for

video editing or anything video-related, you may have a channel for it and could feature it on

your résumé or LinkedIn profile as a showcase of your work.

You may also have a video résumé, or some educational slide shows or presentations.

These can also be linked from your résumé or other profiles to provide additional information

and expertise to readers.


MySpace

I’m not sure that anyone still uses MySpace! Well, to be serious, people still do, but it’s not

really targeted towards IT professionals. Much of the target audience is those in the music

and entertainment industry. I don’t believe that MySpace can offer much to job seekers in

the IT industry.

Summary

Social media or social networking is a highly effective and creative way to find a job – if done

correctly. You should conduct yourself professionally when you are online and setting up

profiles, as almost anything can be found on the internet. Following a few rules, such as

professionalism and privacy, will help your chances in a job search.

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the three main sites you can use to help your job search,

and often these sites contain jobs not listed elsewhere. Setting up profiles on these sites will

help your search and expand the area where you’re looking for jobs.

In my opinion, LinkedIn is one of the most underrated areas of a professional’s overall

profile. I believe that effective use of LinkedIn can get you opportunities that you otherwise

wouldn’t have achieved, and the power of networking is well documented and easy to do on

LinkedIn. I’ll be looking at creating a product on LinkedIn in the future – if you’re interested in

more information or have any questions or requests, contact me at

www.CompleteITProfessional.com.

http://www.completeitprofessional.com/

Career

Using Social Media in Getting an IT Job