Securing a job on Care.com may require more than replying to job postings. When considering who to interview, employers are increasingly using Google to get an impression of potential candidates.
It’s crucial therefore, that when it comes to your Facebook posts, Tweets or Pinterest pictures that your best side shines through!
To get started, Google your email address, name and location. This will help you get a sense of how you come across to any potential employer so that you can take action to remove any unprofessional listings.
Below are 8 tips to professionalise your social media presence.
1. Update Your Photos
While you’re viewing all those profiles and starting new ones, don’t forget to look at the images and photographs too. Any pictures where you are drinking, dressed inappropriately or engaging in behaviour that is unprofessional should be removed. Also double check whether or not any friends have tagged you in these types of pictures. If so, ask them to remove the picture, or untag yourself. And although you can set privacy settings to block these images, potential employers can often still find them — it’s better to be safe than jobless!
2. Set Up a New Email
Yes, the email xoxohottie@yahoo.co.uk worked fine when you were younger, but now that you’re a professional care provider and looking for jobs, it doesn’t give the right message. Take a look at any email addresses, Twitter handles, Skype names, user names, etc. that a family might come into contact with. If something isn’t the best fit, update to a new one.
3. Start Editing
Take a look at all of your online profiles, pages and accounts. What do they say about you? Go through each site and clean up your bio, comments, posts and any other text that families might find unprofessional. Proofread your posts to make sure there aren’t any typos.
4. Tidy Up Comments and Add Recommendations
While all of these elements are crucial, the most important parts of your online reputation are recommendations and third-party opinions. Ask your social media followers, friends and previous employers to leave positive messages on your blog or provide recommendations on LinkedIn.
5. Sign Up to Online Professionals
One of the most useful resources job seekers fail to utilize is LinkedIn. Create a profile on the site, and write a brief ‘About Me’ and include details on all of your amazing employment experience and skills. Then connect with other people in your area and industry. Seeing this additional proof that you take your job seriously will help convince families that you’re the right person to hire.
6. Align Your Profiles
Potential employers will look in several places to glean information about candidates. Cross check your Care.com profile, your profiles on social media sites and your CV. You want to make sure that anything that is on your profiles is also in your CV and vice versa, and it’s all up to date.
7. Express Your Interests
One of the benefits of social media is that you can show more facets of your personality than you can with a typical paper CV. Use social media sites to show how much you enjoy caring for children, watching the elderly or being a pet carer. Follow experts in your field, comment on pertinent news and post relevant articles and images.
8. Be Positive
You may think it was fun to rant about your old family in that blog post, but it may make a new family think twice about hiring you. There’s no faster way to guarantee you won’t get a job than to speak ill of a former employer — instead focus on the positive aspects of your life, such as when you have volunteered.
Used correctly, social media and online sites can be an excellent resource for improving your job search. You don’t want to miss out on an amazing elderly care job or childcare position because you just had to share that picture of you and your best friend back at university.
Have we missed any helpful tips for using social media to secure a care job? Please share your experiences with us using the comments box below.
