Zoe Buchanan recently graduated from Advertising and Public Relations at City of Glasgow College. While at college she was encouraged by a tutor to have a strong social media presence.
‘I tweet a lot and I have my WordPress portfolio blog linked to my Twitter. If I see something on a website, an advert on TV or a marketing campaign I like, I'll tweet about it.’
Recently, Zoe’s Twitter account caught the eye of Scottish PR company The Big Partnership and she was asked to interview for a job.
‘That was amazing as, for once, a potential employer came to me. I doubt I would have applied for that job, not realising I had the capability. Having them seek me out, read my CV and ask me in for an interview was a huge confidence boost.’
Zoe’s story is becoming more and more common as the number of companies recruiting through social media grows.
Becks Armstrong, Global HR Manager at Synthesio, uses social media daily to look for candidates and do a background check on anyone who has sent her a CV.
‘I’m currently recruiting for nine full-time roles and ten freelance roles and for many of these positions I am actively recruiting through social media – mainly LinkedIn and Twitter and some Google+.’
Not only does recruiting through social media save employers money they would have spent hiring an agency or advertising on jobsites, but it also means they can learn more about a candidate’s personality than they could from just reading their CV.
‘There has to be something in their social media presence that appeals,’ Armstrong says, ‘so I’m looking at their content, their profile picture and their sense of humour to see if it will fit with our company culture.’
As more and more companies scramble to promote themselves on sites such as Twitter, just having an understanding of social media could give you a professional leg up, as digital manager Craig Hoey discovered.
‘My knowledge of social media actually helped me get a promotion – because I had personal experience of using it, and this was an unknown field for the company, I was able to fill a gap.’
Of course, not every jobseeker using social media will get lucky, but by making professional contacts on sites like LinkedIn and Twitter, you’re ensuring that if a position becomes available further down the line, you’ll already be on the radar of all those contacts.
As Paul Murricane, Managing Director of Axis Media Group, says, ‘The great thing about networking sites is that they show that you are connected. They make a virtue out of the old adage that it's not what you know but who you know that counts.’
Fancy using social media to boost your career but don’t know where to start? Read our tips to finding a job through social media.
My World of Work is looking for someone to take part in a challenge to find job opportunities through social media. If you’d like to apply then email myworldofwork@sds.co.uk.
