Got a great resume? Good, now put your best Social face on and get a good job!
Those easy days are behind us when we need not do anything else but get our resumes into the inbox of every possible Employer and wait for them to respond to it. At most, we reminded them of the mail with a shrewd rejoinder and kept our fingers crossed hoping for the best.
Today, if a Job Seeker ignores social, he or she is losing out to a large section of net-savvy employers looking for talent on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Employers who have a great team never settle down. They carry out relentless searches to locate a better employee than the last they hired. At times, inductions may be low, but that does not mean that employment opportunities have ceased to exist. It only means that HRs are looking for someone better! So how do you portray yourself as the next best hire?
The answer lies in Social Media Optimization or what is also known as Social Media Marketing (SMM).
Unless you very popular in your circles, you will have to take advantage of the power of social networks to reach good companies. You should however be careful not to market yourself too aggressively lest you want your current employer to get pissed off into kicking your butt!
The Very Basics
Almost everybody has a Facebook or Google + account, what they do not have is a proper online profile. Job seekers have much to learn from online authors who work very hard on creating a good bait for publishers. Let us see if we can modify that model a bit to suit job seekers.
Creating a Free Website/Blog
One of the easier things to do today is to create a free website. There are literally hundreds of places where one can get a free website. The domain names are a bit tacky, but these free websites/blogs serve the purpose well.
We like Google Sites for its potentiality, but there are alternatives that simplify the entire process to a few steps. Here are three of those:
1. Webs
The most likable aspect of this website is that there are hundreds and thousands of templates on offer which can be easily modified to your need. These are best for websites which have a lot of multimedia to showcase, besides business (e-commerce website) can be easily build thanks to the available tools. Here is a screen grab of the website.
2. Weebly
The next site on our list for making a free website is Weebly. This is among the more famous ones that people are using to make multi-lingual websites with little or no knowledge of HTML/web designing! Many widgets on the website are available for free and lots more are available for a little sum of money. The best thing about Weebly is the easy interface (which is not the best but comes close to being so!).
3. Webnodes
We thought a novice should look no further than Webnodes to create a simple website to show off his employability. In just three easy steps, a free website can be created with all the basics in it for nada. If you want some more to make your website sophisticated, pay a little and convert your subscription to premium.
You can add extra storage and get personalized email accounts just in case you plan to convert the website for business. For our purpose of making a good landing page for prospective employers, we do not need any of these.
Just try these out and complete the first step.
Showcasing Your Talent
Once you have the platform, you will need to build a nice portfolio on it for the future. How do you do that if you are a job seeker and a fresher at that?
Collect the best projects you have done till date, all your internship projects, college presentations and a few some dummy projects. Make these projects simple yet nice so that employers are impressed with your work.
If you have done precious little during college and have got nothing to show, then you will have to work extra hard and make up for the lost time, unless of course, your mother knows someone on the boards of director!
Tips on Making a Good Showcase
1. Avoid gaudy colors
2. Keep font size nice and comfortable
3. Use a easy to read font-face, this is no time to showoff stylish fonts
4. Maintain a logical flow of your work (for eg: school > college > internship > first job)
5. Write short descriptions and keep the language easy to read, no big words and absolutely no jargons.
Leading the Employer into Your Profile
This is where all your hard work comes to fruition.
You will have to do some marketing (basic) to get eyeballs on your work. Usually an hour or two on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook (BranchOut) is enough, but if you want to get ahead of your competitors, you will need a little professional push. This is where full time SMM experts come into the picture.
If you look and enquire at the right places, you should find affordable SMM packages to make the cut in the steep job market.
The Big Connection
Here is our special tip at the end. Get a video posted at the home page. This should be where all visitors to your website/blog will land. Make sure you make very good use of your time and say the right things. Watch a few professional videos on YouTube and get a feel of what is good and what is crap!
At the end of your video make sure you tell your visitor to check your profile and portfolios and thank them for their time.
Those easy days are behind us when we need not do anything else but get our resumes into the inbox of every possible Employer and wait for them to respond to it. At most, we reminded them of the mail with a shrewd rejoinder and kept our fingers crossed hoping for the best.
Today, if a Job Seeker ignores social, he or she is losing out to a large section of net-savvy employers looking for talent on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Employers who have a great team never settle down. They carry out relentless searches to locate a better employee than the last they hired. At times, inductions may be low, but that does not mean that employment opportunities have ceased to exist. It only means that HRs are looking for someone better! So how do you portray yourself as the next best hire?
The answer lies in Social Media Optimization or what is also known as Social Media Marketing (SMM).
Unless you very popular in your circles, you will have to take advantage of the power of social networks to reach good companies. You should however be careful not to market yourself too aggressively lest you want your current employer to get pissed off into kicking your butt!
The Very Basics
Almost everybody has a Facebook or Google + account, what they do not have is a proper online profile. Job seekers have much to learn from online authors who work very hard on creating a good bait for publishers. Let us see if we can modify that model a bit to suit job seekers.
Creating a Free Website/Blog
One of the easier things to do today is to create a free website. There are literally hundreds of places where one can get a free website. The domain names are a bit tacky, but these free websites/blogs serve the purpose well.
We like Google Sites for its potentiality, but there are alternatives that simplify the entire process to a few steps. Here are three of those:
1. Webs
The most likable aspect of this website is that there are hundreds and thousands of templates on offer which can be easily modified to your need. These are best for websites which have a lot of multimedia to showcase, besides business (e-commerce website) can be easily build thanks to the available tools. Here is a screen grab of the website.
| www.webs.com |
2. Weebly
The next site on our list for making a free website is Weebly. This is among the more famous ones that people are using to make multi-lingual websites with little or no knowledge of HTML/web designing! Many widgets on the website are available for free and lots more are available for a little sum of money. The best thing about Weebly is the easy interface (which is not the best but comes close to being so!).
| www.weebly.com |
3. Webnodes
We thought a novice should look no further than Webnodes to create a simple website to show off his employability. In just three easy steps, a free website can be created with all the basics in it for nada. If you want some more to make your website sophisticated, pay a little and convert your subscription to premium.
You can add extra storage and get personalized email accounts just in case you plan to convert the website for business. For our purpose of making a good landing page for prospective employers, we do not need any of these.
Just try these out and complete the first step.
Showcasing Your Talent
Once you have the platform, you will need to build a nice portfolio on it for the future. How do you do that if you are a job seeker and a fresher at that?
Collect the best projects you have done till date, all your internship projects, college presentations and a few some dummy projects. Make these projects simple yet nice so that employers are impressed with your work.
If you have done precious little during college and have got nothing to show, then you will have to work extra hard and make up for the lost time, unless of course, your mother knows someone on the boards of director!
Tips on Making a Good Showcase
1. Avoid gaudy colors
2. Keep font size nice and comfortable
3. Use a easy to read font-face, this is no time to showoff stylish fonts
4. Maintain a logical flow of your work (for eg: school > college > internship > first job)
5. Write short descriptions and keep the language easy to read, no big words and absolutely no jargons.
Leading the Employer into Your Profile
This is where all your hard work comes to fruition.
You will have to do some marketing (basic) to get eyeballs on your work. Usually an hour or two on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook (BranchOut) is enough, but if you want to get ahead of your competitors, you will need a little professional push. This is where full time SMM experts come into the picture.
If you look and enquire at the right places, you should find affordable SMM packages to make the cut in the steep job market.
The Big Connection
Here is our special tip at the end. Get a video posted at the home page. This should be where all visitors to your website/blog will land. Make sure you make very good use of your time and say the right things. Watch a few professional videos on YouTube and get a feel of what is good and what is crap!
At the end of your video make sure you tell your visitor to check your profile and portfolios and thank them for their time.
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