Written by Jennie Holmes @GenerateSolutions
The job market has dramatically changed and a large part of that is due to social media, according to Jobvite 94% of recruiters plan to use social media for recruitment and this figure has been increasing steadily over the last 6 years. Within the superyacht industry, there are two networks which are important when it comes to getting your next role: Facebook and LinkedIn. So what can you do to ensure that your social profiles move you to the ‘yes’ pile when it comes to recruitment?
Get your LinkedIn profile up to date
Social Meep found that 89% of recruiters have hired through LinkedIn across all industries. Superyacht industry is one of the few exceptions where Facebook plays a greater role in recruitment, but as the number of LinkedIn subscribers continues to grow it is likely that it will become the number one platform across all industries. Currently, there is less competition on LinkedIn as despite a growing audience only 36% of candidates actively use LinkedIn compared to 83% of people using Facebook (Jobvite) when it comes to finding their next role.
The key to LinkedIn in is coming up on the search results that recruiters or potential employers are likely to use. The best strategy for showing up in the right search results is to complete your profile. LinkedIn will guide you through your profile completion to get you to the desired ‘All Star’ status. bet356 Here are the top things that you want to do on your profile:
- Update your personal URL to include your name
- Get a good photo
- Complete your profile and include a summary
- Get skills endorsements and organise them
- Get recommendations and sort them
- Post relevant content at least once a month
Personal URL
The personal URL is still rarely used, so take advantage now! This sits just below your profile picture and when you don’t amend it looks like: Your-Name-4606343af3
To change your public profile URL you want to follow these steps:
- Go to your profile
- Click on the drop-down next to the ‘view profile as’ button
- Go to ‘Mange public profile settings’
- Amend your public profile URL
Get a suitable photo
This is so important. Your LinkedIn profile is 40% more likely to get clicked on if you include an image (Ladders).
What you want is a photo with:
- You looking straight ahead
- Good lighting
- You smiling (or at least not looking angry)
- You dressed in appropriate clothes for your industry
- You looking like a professional
Update your profile and include a summary
LinkedIn tells you your profile strength, and you want to get to ‘All Star’. The more relevant information that you include in your profile the more likely that you will show up in recruiter searches. LinkedIn is your online CV so treat it as such. If you are trying to demonstrate that you have particular skills then include examples of what you have achieved in your summary. There have been a lot of articles recently about the buzzwords to avoid using on LinkedIn such as ‘Passionate, Driven and Responsible’ (FastCompany). Whilst you will want to demonstrate these qualities you are much better off giving a concrete example of them.
Get endorsed and prioritise how they are displayed
Most of us are now familiar with a review process; it is how we select restaurants on TripAdvisor and how we pick a flat on Air bnb, yet a surprisingly large volume of people don’t actively seek skill endorsements. Also, they rarely organise their skill endorsements to reflect the roles that they are seeking. For example, if you looking to change careers then you want to move those skills up to the top of the list. This also helps you get new endorsements for those skills as most people endorse the first 3 or 4 skills that they get to on your list.
Get recommendations from people you’ve worked with
As with endorsements, recommendations play an important role in the recruitment process. These are generally harder to attain than endorsements, as it requires the individual to sit down and write words, which many of us don’t like doing! One way around this, depending on your relationship with the individual, is to help them out by doing a draft, this takes the pressure off them and they just need to ‘ok’ it and post!
Once you have your recommendations then it makes sense to display them in an order that adds the most value to your profile. If you don’t do this then LinkedIn will display them chronologically. اون لاين روليت I really recommend ordering them as LinkedIn only displays the first two and most recruiters won’t take the time to read all of them.
Post relevant content at least once a month
The more relevant content that you can share the better. As a minimum once a month is a good place to start. Engagement with your content (or even a link from another source) increases your profile across the network. العب بلاك جاك A recruiter will like to know that you have a genuine interest in the industry you work in and that you understand the ‘hot’ topics.
Update your Facebook privacy settings
The level of privacy that you want on your profile is a personal choice. Just make sure that you have made this choice and that you haven’t just left it to default without considering the impact that it could have.
There are a huge number of horror stories about people losing jobs because of poor privacy management. The problem is often what you consider inoffensive may not be the same as a current or potential employer. If you have any doubt about the content of your Facebook then limit what can be seen.
Same for your Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine…
Facebook is the most common offender when it comes to unfavourable content being found but sadly is not the only one. A quick Google will show you how many people that have lost their jobs, or not even been able to start their jobs because of their social media activity. The average person now has 5 social media accounts, this is a huge amount of content to self-police so if you are ever prone to an online rant or a drunken photo the best way for you to avoid this impacting your career is to restrict your privacy settings.
Use social media to your advantage
It is a good idea to get your online profiles looking amazing. If you are actively searching for a job it is an even better idea to use social media to find it. Social networks offer an opportunity to connect with a brand, company or decision maker in a unique way. An Aberdeen study found that 73% of 18-34-year-olds found their last job through a social network.
If you are interested in finding out more about how you can manage your online profile Generate Solutions have written another blog that you can read here.
Image credit: Michel @Flickr
