“This is the new age of career building. Social media platforms are
the new resumes, and you need to be able to “sell” yourself” [mywebcareer.com,
2013]. In the modern, image saturated, digitally orientated, Western culture;
companies are now realizing the business potential of online tools such as
social media. Over the years, the evolution of social media and the internet
has driven employers to utilize these tools for operations such as recruitment or
marketing, transforming their mindset and strategy away from the stigma of
solely the use of social media as a recreational pass time. With the job market
becoming more and more difficult to penetrate, and the competition becoming as
ravenous as it has ever been, how can the creation of a strategic,
professional, and accessible online presence help you?
Primarily, your online presence helps you’re positioning within a
job market, creating a sense of transparency and accessibility that others may
not have. CareerBuilder.com found that “One in five employers use social
networking sites to research job candidates, and close to 59% of them are influenced
by your online presence” [mywebcareer.com,2013]
Your online presence should be seen as your own brand, maintaining consistency
throughout, and a level of professionalism and rapport that you can be proud
of. Doing this can be extremely easy and cheap - social media can be your voice
and image, a blog your mind, and a website your body. There are numerous free
website builders that are simple to use and give tremendous results for an
online portfolio; this can be as basic or advanced as you like, giving access
to your CV, examples of work, and contact information. Maintaining your online
presence can also be convenient and manageable with a variety of dedicated apps
such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. As more and more applications are being
produced for our convenience, there is no excuse that you ‘don’t have time’ or
that it’s ‘too much work’. Attitudes like this are not what companies are
looking for, and this may become more evident to them if you don’t present yourself
online.
In a recent study by ‘OfficeTeam’, they found “that more than
one-third of company’s feel that resumes will be replaced by profiles on social
media networks” [forbes.com, 2011]. Dan Schawbel, a contributor to Forbes
online and entrepreneur, sets out five
reasons why an online presence will replace a resume which urge you, if you
want a successful job application process, to really push your professional
self online before someone else does. Two interesting points made by Schawbel
are that the way we find jobs not has moved from the traditional ‘respond to advertisements’
to a more creative and interdependent exercise; and that the way people are
managing their careers has now taken a more entrepreneurial route, meaning that
applicants have become more savvy, building their own business to supplement
their income, and build their brand, shifting the balance in favor of the
applicant as the companies want their skills.
When it comes down to it, having an online presence does not take a
lot of worked if managed correctly, it can help show off you and your skill
set, place you ahead of the competition, and help level out the playing field
between you and your potential employer during the interview process. So what’s
holding you back? In the fast paced, constantly transforming business world, you
need to put in the effort to make sure you aren’t left behind.
Thanks for reading,
