How to Use Your Digital Brand to Land the Perfect Job

Your digital brand can be used for more than just creating your own business. It can also generate interest in you for a new job. Believe it or not, you can use your digital brand even to land you the perfect job.

How to Use Your Digital Brand to Land the Perfect Job

There are a few places where posting your resume and cover letter are appropriate and can help to build your brand and land your dream job. One social media site that is perfect for this is LinkedIn.

Top 4 Things Your Resume Should Tell Employers:

1. Who you are as a professional

  • Write a professional/executive summary. This will tell an employer about you. You’ll want to highlight what you can bring to the table.
  • Highlight your complete marketing budget and your top skills.

2. Your skills profile

  • Include a table with the industry’s top skills. You can Google specifically what skills are useful here and then include the ones that you’ve acquired.
  • Make sure that these are organized in a clear, concise way. To make it more eye-catching, you can even place it at the top.

3. Your accomplishments

  • You’ll want a separate section for your leadership roles and your accomplishments. This can also include your promotions and volunteer experiences. These give great insight into what kind of professional you are.

4. Your core values

  • Communicate who you are as a person. This where you stand out from other people who may have achieved similar things in their lives. What makes you different?

Cover Letters

The biggest thing to remember here is to keep it concise.

Follow the Skinny Method to make sure that you keep your cover letter under control. The Skinny Method’s goal is to trim the facts and get to the point. Make it easy for your potential employers to see exactly what they’re looking for when they look at you.

The Skinny Method

Your Name
Phone/Email/Address

Greetings Employer Name,

Experiences

Certifications

Small anecdote

Strong Salutation,
Your Name

Other cover letters can fall under the category we call the Fat Method. These cover letters have too many paragraphs. Your employer doesn’t time for all for your hopes and dreams for the future. They want to know the parts of you that are relevant to the job and to their company.

You’ll want to stand out without being obnoxious in your individuality.

Job Seeking Meets Digital Branding

With so many jobs being posted online and never having an employer have the chance to get to know you outside of your written words the question becomes: How do I get noticed on an online application?

Here is where social media can work to your advantage. It’s becoming common knowledge that most employers use social media to screen their candidates. This can cause you to completely erase your online persona in an attempt to hide something embarrassing from potential employers, but that can backfire on you.

Nearly 60% of all hiring managers surveyed are less likely to interview a job candidate if they are unable to find info about that person online, and one-quarter of them expect their candidates to have an online presence.

So if an employer google searched you, what would they find?

Google Yourself

Googling yourself will tell you exactly how much people will find when they look for you. You’ll want to find out if there’s anything noteworthy about you that will come up. Things like conferences, seminars, LinkedIn, volunteering, and even aspects of your personal life may show up, and be positive for your job prospects.

Another important issue to address is to see if you have a common name. Is your evil twin out there messing with the same name you are trying to get a job with? You’re going to have to differentiate yourself from all the other ‘John Smith’s out there.

One way to stand out may be to start using a middle name. By doing this you will have created a distinctive name for yourself that will stand out from the others. Include it in your social media profiles and your application documents.

When googling yourself, check out what some of the frequent photos of you are. These may include party photos, event photos, family pictures, or even memes. Take a moment to examine your pattern. What does this pattern say about you? Do your pictures reflect your core values?

This is where you can begin to align your brand depending on the industry. When you google yourself, your information should match up with your brand and with your industry values.

What do employers search for when they google you?

According to a 2016 study, at least 60 percent of employers’ google prospective job seekers to review their reputations. Do you imagine that number has decreased since then? We don’t.

Even more alarming is the 35 percent of participants of another 2016 study they found material on social networking sites that caused them not to hire a job candidate. The most common reason to turn down an employee… Social media posts that were considered ‘provocative or inappropriate’.

-Zocket

So we know what employers don’t want to see, but what are they hoping to find out about you?

Surveys have shown that employers are looking for background information that matches their job qualifications. They want to make sure that you have consistency and integrity. They are also looking for a professional image and a profile that’s a good fit for their company culture (you shouldn’t seem like a liability).

It can also help to appear well-rounded with a wide range of interests. Communication skills are huge here. Show that you have a great handle on spelling and grammar so that they don’t have to worry about editing or training you.

Instagram Takeaways for the Perfect Job

How to Use Your Digital Brand to Land the Perfect Job

Social media giant Instagram is a great example of just how influential your brand can be in your search for jobs.

Instagram shows just how simple it is to control how people perceive you. With Instagram, you choose what to post and what you will look like to the world. That’s  the joy of digital pictures and a million selfies. You get to decide what to post and what message you want to convey.

Another part of Instagram that you can use for your job hunt is the use your name to be discoverable. Using your name as your brand on Instagram will make it that much easier for companies to ess exactly what parts of you that you want them to see.

Building your brand on Instagram is also a great time to add your connections to organizations, like universities and companies, and to your personal website. Make it easy to find great things out about yourself and to see what other great organizations you’ve been affiliated with.  Site your aspirations, feature your work, and show a commitment to your niche.

Utilizing LinkedIn to Find the Perfect Job

LinkedIn is a great social media site that is made for business. Employers will search LinkedIn the most when discovering more about you, so if you don’t have a LinkedIn account, now is the time to get one.

How to Use Your Digital Brand to Land the Perfect Job

The first thing you’ll want to do is develop and expand your personal network of professionals that your potential employer will want to send a request to for a referral of a recommended candidate. LinkedIn stated that it has members from all 500 of the Fortune 500 companies and that its members comprise 130 different industries and over 100,000 recruiters. That’s a huge network just waiting to be accessed.

In addition to finding the right network, you’ll also want to comb through your own page to make sure its accurately representing you and your brand. Feature the content and blog posts that you write on your LinkedIn account to give it further notice for employers. You’ll also want to update your account as your experience grows.

SEE ALSO: Digital Branding Checklist for Recent Graduates

Social Media Handles

How to Use Your Digital Brand to Land the Perfect Job

Think of your social media handle as your trademark. This is the name that is an extension of you and will carry the importance of your brand for your job search.

Your social media handle should be alive and a vibrant extension of your resume. Use it to your advantage!

Here are the three big problems with getting your social media handle going for your job:

1. Your name is already taken.

  • When this happens, you work with what you’ve got. You should try to get the most logical name possible with what is available.

2. You’ve built up another brand under your ideal name.

  • This may just be the ideal time to merge your two brands. If they’re similar enough you’ll still be able to use your ideal handle and be appealing to potential employers that find you on your job hunt.

3. You want to build a different community on each platform.

  • Most brands will use all social media networks at the same time to create the biggest, most engaged community possible; however, sometimes it makes sense to separate your community a bit. If this is you, then make sure that they are clearly separated and include a link back to the network where you address your specific job-related issues.

Final Thoughts

When using your brand on social media to get the perfect job, just remember to be involved. Post what you’re passionate about.

Check yourself out on Google, and don’t forget the images! You might be surprised at what you find. Be sure to refine your Instagram account. Maximize the value of your presence on social media.

Above all, remember:

Stop waiting on someone to build the door of opportunity for you.

-Monika Stockhauser

Is there anything else we should add to this article? Let us know in the comment section below…

Written by
Juntae DeLane

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