Dear Social Media, Find me a job!
Remember the days when you use to go through the Saturday paper, circling employment ads and sending off your resume via mail or email. I do ... maybe that’s because I’m 31. Some of you won’t recall a time of non digital search results at your fingertips. Some of you will reflect and remember it too well.
Gone are those days. Now we have so much information in real time that finding a job is so easy! But the problem now has shifted to sifting through the multitude and volumes of information online. It can sometimes be over bearing and frustrating to find the exact information that you want, when looking for a job.
That’s where Social Media can help.
Listed below are several ways you can research a company and a role, hear what is being said about it, what type of feedback the customers are giving and use this information to make an informed choice of whether you would like to work there or not. The power is now in the hands of the employee to find the most suited career, not the employer to find the best candidate. After all, if we are doing what we love, are we really working in the first place?
Using Social Media platforms, can help you find out as much information about companies like never before. Here’s how:
Company Pages – Search the company that you are interested in. They will more than likely have a FB page. ‘Like’ their page and check out the comments people are leaving about them. Are they being praised for their great products or services, or are they constantly fighting off complaints?
Facebook Search Functionality (Bing) – Within Facebook there is also a web search engine, powered by Microsoft BING. Use this functionality to see if you can pull any data from anywhere in Facebook (where available) and the net to find out as much as you can about the company.
Follow Company – Follow a company or people whom work at the company on Twitter. Simply having these people in your Twitter Stream allows you to learn a lot about the company. It also keeps you up to date with their latest information and a reflection of their customer service online.
Hashtags – Search a Hashtag under the company name or one of its products. What do the reviews, comments and feedback reflect? Is there a positive sentiment or negative sentiment?
LinkedIn Company Profiles – LinkedIn has company profiles, so you can tap into the professional social networking platform and understand exactly what the company is about.
Connected People – Check LinkedIn to see if any of your connections are also connected to the company or people within the company. If so, shoot them a quick email asking them about their experiences with the company. Would they make a recommendation of working there?
Most companies now have blogs and this is a great way to hear the humanistic voice of a company. Have a read of their blogs, and check out some of the comments and feedback and the companies reactions to this.
What’s clearly evident in using the above search tools is that companies should now be placing greater emphasis on their Social Media Platforms, and monitoring the noise out there in the Social Media world about them.
Keeping up to date with comments, feedback and reviews is so vital these days, as so many of us trust user created consumer sentiment over company advertising, and this is what will drive revenue streams. The difference between a good and bad experience posted online means the difference between a profit and a loss.
So when you’re next looking for a company you want to work for, do a little research using Social Media before hand, it will be interesting to see what you come up with and more importantly if that company is still suited for you.
Follow me on Twitter: @cosmicrami
