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Social Media and the Job Hunt
Amy VernonGM, Social MarketingInternet Media Labs
Source: Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey
Everybody’s Doing It
• LinkedIn has 225 million registered users• Executives from all 2012 Fortune 500
companies are members• LinkedIn members did more than 5.7 billion
professionally oriented searches on the platform in 2012.
• More than 2.9 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages.
Source: LinkedIn
The cardinal rule
What does that mean?
• Assume everything you do online – even in a “private” email – is public.
• Conduct yourself accordingly.• No drunk photos.• No cursing.• Proofread.• If you’re not sure if you should post it, don’t.
Source: Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey
Social Media Can Hurt You
Source: onDevice research, via Trackur
What you should do
• Tell your career story• Fill out your profile completely• Use a quality photo (i.e., not blurry, not cut
out from a larger photo)• Use keywords – think Search. • Join groups and network
The Platform Makes the Difference
• LinkedIn: For business only. Don’t be cute. Don’t share cat videos. Spelling counts.
• Facebook: Feel free to share cat videos. Don’t post drunk photos. Spelling doesn’t count as much, but don’t post gibberish.
• Twitter: Spelling counts, but space-saving abbreviations are OK.
Source: Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey
Every Social Profile Counts
Of employers who look up candidates’ social profiles:
• 65% said they do it to see if the job seeker presents himself or herself professionally
• 51% want to know if the candidate is a good fit for the company culture
• 45% want to learn more about the candidate’s qualifications
• 34% said they have found content that has caused them not to hire the candidate.– Half of those said that was due provocative or
inappropriate photos and/or information – 45% cited evidence of drinking and/or drug – Other reasons: displaying poor communication
skills, bad-mouthing previous employers, making discriminatory comments related to race, gender, or religion, or lying about qualifications.
Source: Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey
Email: Be Professional
• Gmail is preferable to Yahoo, Excite or Hotmail.• Whatever domain you use, don’t be cutesy in your address.• Good: [email protected]. Not good:
[email protected]• Your own email address (i.e., not shared with a partner –
[email protected] ) • Don’t put lots of numbers in your address.
[email protected] [email protected] • Avoid the spam filter: “many email filters are set up to look
for numbers, underscores, and superlative adjectives. [email protected].
Partial source: Consultant Journal Photo by comedy_nose via Flickr Creative Commons
Questions?• Amy Vernon• [email protected]• Twitter: http://twitter.com/amyvernon• LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/amyvernon• Facebook: http://facebook.com/amyvernon
