A social resume is used to showcase your online presence using various social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. With numerous people looking for jobs daily, recruiting and hiring can be extremely time-consuming and tiring for recruiters. This is because they will often have to go through countless resumes and applications and determine the candidates that best fit their requirements. This has led some recruiters to consider social resumes as a way of cutting down the time they use to determine the best candidates. Accordingly, every job seeker needs to consider having a social resume if they want to land better jobs.
Here are five reasons why.
1. Helps Employers Understand You Better
Having a social resume is vital as employers are invariably interested in understanding how you are and how you interact with others. Specifically, in a social resume, employers will want to understand whether your communication skills are good, if you exhibit the personality they are looking for, and whether you have discipline issues. Employers will always want to know if prospective candidates demonstrate the skills they need before they invite them for an interview. For instance, an employer can learn if you have fintech skills if your social resume indicates an interest in cryptocurrencies or your social media profiles show creativity. Similarly, they can screen for communication skills in your resume when screening candidates for virtual assistant jobs.
2. Makes You Unique
Every job applicant understands the importance of uniqueness in the job market. There comes a time when applicants have similar skills, experiences, and education levels, and recruiters must find the tiniest details that set them apart. This makes having a social resume indispensable. A social resume shows you are not reluctant to showcase your skills and experience to the world. Recruiters may fail to look at traditional resumes and only check the candidate’s social media presence, which is a great advantage to get shortlisted and land jobs fast.
3. It’s Your Chance to Show Off
Having a social resume helps you detail your past experiences and successes. You can use flowery language to highlight your skills and show employers that you are the person they are looking for. Recruiters are always looking for a candidate persona that helps them expedite the recruitment and hiring process. Social media sites today allow you to use metrics and graphs to show employers what you have achieved in the past.
For instance, if you have previously worked as a social media manager, you can show that you have grown traffic by a specific rate using metrics or graphs. If you are a web developer, you may also show off some of the skills that are vital in web development, such as communication and creating an appealing platform. Showing off your social resume may help the employer get a general picture of who you are. The branded persona you create from this social resume may be significantly vital in creating a good and lasting impression.
4. Shows You Are Proactive
In this fast-paced world, being proactive is one skill employers are constantly looking for. Having a social resume shows them that you are not stodgy and disconnected from the modern world. People who are proactive on social media are often considered lively, approachable, and adaptable. Psychological studies have shown that a proactive personality is pivotal in acquiring career adaptability resources and attaining good adaptation outcomes. Career adaptability is defined as an individual’s readiness to prepare for and participate in work roles that come with unpredictable adjustments and are prompted by internal and external conditions.
Numerous changes are happening in the modern job market, such as industry 5.0 and various workplace trends such as diversity and inclusivity. Employers want to know if prospective candidates have the requisite skills and mindsets to adapt to these changes faster and move with the current trends. With a social resume, employers will see how you have been keeping up with the recent changes in the industry and notice your extent of proactivity.
5. Helps Keep You Relevant
Having a social resume compels you to use social media platforms regularly to update your skills and experiences or engage with followers. This is highly beneficial as it keeps you updated on the latest trends and allows you to engage with like-minded individuals. Employers also want to know that prospective candidates have researched their company cultures before shortlisting them for an interview. A social resume makes this work easier as you can follow the target organization, like their content, comment on their posts, and retweet their content.
The best candidates in the job market are those who accurately predict what employers want, familiarize themselves with the requirements of the specific jobs they are applying to, and sell themselves in the best manner possible. A social resume makes this work easier as you can progressively update skills and experiences, engage with the prospective employers’ posts intellectually and professionally, and stand out from the rest of the flock. However, for your social resume to be successful, it is vital to understand the four best social media platforms commonly used by employers and how to communicate on social media effectively. Indeed, whilst knowing that having a social resume is vital, how you develop and use it is also critical.
