New research has revealed that making smart use of social media could improve your chances of landing that dream job.

Experts from the Brathay Hall Trust, a non-profit set up to provide personal and social development opportunities for young people, found that only 19% of British job hunters are making use of social media to help advance their careers.

However, the research revealed that 12% of employers say that a good presence on social media impresses them. A further 65% of businesses actually make use of online profiles in order to hire recruits.

The Trust, which published its study to make the finale of its Brathay Apprentice Challenge 2015, strongly believes that young people should be making use of social media to celebrate their skills and to increase their appeal to employers. Chief executive Godfrey Owen said:

“With employers increasingly using social media to recruit, it is a great medium for people looking for promotion or a new job to enhance their career.

“But social self-selling isn’t just about talking about qualifications and experience, it is also vital to include soft skills such as volunteering, leadership, coaching or mentoring on CVs and on social media profiles.”

Why don’t job hunters use social media more?

It could be the case that people are scared of using social media to find new positions, network and sell their skills to potential employers, because they are worried about making the wrong impression. However, if personal and professional use of social networks are kept separate, and users always share and post with their professional image in mind, job hunters can enjoy very positive results from being a pro-active social media user.

Tips for job hunting via social media

It’s important to remember that many employers are actively looking for people who have skills that can help their businesses in the future, as well as now. If you can demonstrate successfully techniques for promoting yourself and your skills using social media, this shows businesses that you can promote them too. Here are some top tips for job hunting via social media:

• Make LinkedIn your priority. There are certainly opportunities for self-promotion on other platforms, but this professional social network is a very good place to focus most of your attention. It is where all of the networking, contact-making and head-hunting happens, so you need to be as visible as possible.
• Post interesting, valuable content. In order to impress, and to avoid being too repetitive or desperate-sounding in your self-promotion, demonstrate that you have your finger on the pulse of your industry by providing your target employers with interesting, valuable content that they actually want to read.
• Engage with your potential employers. If there’s a company you really want to work with, start to engage with them on networks like Twitter beforehand – your interest could make all the difference if you manage to get an interview.
• Clean up your personal profiles. It’s good to show yourself as a well-rounded candidate with both a personal and professional online presence, but if there’s anything you’d rather not be judged on, remove it before you start your job hunt.

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