Yahoo Finance Can you use social media to find your next job and how do you do it?
If the world is about to start looking for a new job in 2022 as part of the predicted Great Resignation, it’s highly likely social media will play a role in that process.
According to a recent survey by recruitment platform CareerArc, 92 per cent of employers use social media to recruit talent.
It follows that if social media is where the employers are looking, job seekers should follow.
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Most of those employers will use Linkedin as their first port of call for sourcing staff, and we’ve reported previously on how you should update your profile on this site as part of your search.
But are there other social media platforms that can help you find that dream job?
Tik Tok resumes
Back in July this year, TikTok launched a pilot project allowing people to upload short video résumés, which would be viewed by major employers.
No doubt Generation Z (those born after 1996) were all over this, but for an ex-recruitment professional like me (who is old enough to remember life without the internet), it seemed bizarre.
Uploading a video of yourself talking through your experience? Really?
We caught up with social media expert Neal Schaffer – author of The Age of Influence - to get his views on this development.
"In terms of sheer visibility, if you can create content around your skill in an entertaining way, TikTok will reward you with a lot of visibility," Schaffer said.
"The problem is that most hiring managers might not be active on that platform yet, which is why I think Instagram is a better fit."
Instagram is coming
According to Schaffer, the people making the hiring decisions are more likely to be on Instagram than TikTok, so it makes sense to explore whether this is the platform to use.
As this article from Career Portal Media Bistro describes, Instagram can be great for ‘branding yourself’, networking and displaying your talents to large organisations.
It’s a view Shaffer agrees with, explaining how job seekers on Instagram can, “easily engage with the profiles of businesses they want to work at, then easily send them a direct message”.
He qualifies this with the advice that, “not all of them will respond, but compared to other social networks, Instagram gives you the visibility and ease of engagement where most hiring managers are active."
One point to make here is that Media Bistro is specifically a portal for job seekers in the Media industry, and it’s understandable that creatives will look for innovative ways to market their skills.
We’re not sure this example is being followed by other industries yet, and anecdotal evidence I receive from my recruitment network in Australia supports this. Ultimately it will come down to where your audience (in this case, employers) is likely to be.
For example, it’s unlikely a partner in a law firm is going to be checking Instagram or TikTok for their next hire anytime soon.
That’s probably the case for most industries at the executive end of the job market, but equally this may change as the demographics of hiring managers change.
The rise of YouTube
One social media platform tipped for big things in 2022 is YouTube, particularly as it launched YouTube Shorts last year in a bid to counter TikTok.
Although You Tube doesn’t yet have a specialist resume function, it may not be long before they enter that market.
As Schaffer points out: “You can always repurpose TikTok content to Instagram Reels and even post on YouTube Shorts for maximum visibility throughout social media."
It’s worth noting that most of the examples given in this article relate to the job market in the United States, but from experience in digital marketing I’d say that what starts in the US usually follows in Australia.
Inevitably, It seems that the world of job hunting, like many other things post-COVID, will change significantly, with a multi-platform approach likely to be commonplace in future years.
What is clear is that if the Great Resignation does happen in Australia, then social media will play a big part in the job search for those millions of Australians looking for a new role.
Although Linkedin remains the number one destination for job seekers here, their dominance is likely to be challenged in the coming years if the market in America is anything to go by.
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