As recruiting professionals working in the technology sector, we are extraordinarily aware of the importance of social media in recruitment strategies. This is true for both recruiters and candidates. As a candidate for a career move, are you taking full advantage of what social media can do for you?

To be effective recruiters of people for our clients, we are actively involved in social media activity each day. We update our Facebook and Twitter accounts with news, career advice, and open positions and we continually qualify prospective candidates for our new opportunities. Social media enables us to quickly interact with job seekers, efficiently communicating new opportunities, and offering all parties the convenience of sharing needed information on these platforms.

To best take advantage of social media, the starting point is to get familiar and create accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. If you have already done so, that’s great; always be aware that it is highly likely recruiters will actively research and read your profiles. There are a few things you should be careful about:

1. LinkedIn is an interconnected network experienced professionals from around the world, representing over 170 industries and 200 countries. Your profile can provide a wealth of information to recruiters, and can make the difference between you being asked for an interview or not. Recruiters pay special attention to every detail; how relevant is your work experience, your 2nd or 3rd degree connections to get a sense of your wider network, your activity in relevant groups, and recommendations from peers, managers, and colleagues.
2. With more than 500 million users, Facebook is the largest of the social networking sites. As recruiter, when looking at a candidate on Facebook, it’s better to see less than more. So, if you have not set a privacy policy for your account, you should really be extra careful with what pictures, comments, and status updates you post. Always keep in mind that if you have a public profile, who reads the information may not know you, and some posts may be misleading or taken out of a specific context.
3. Twitter is a microblogging social networking service.When recruiters find a potential candidate on Twitter,they see and evaluate his/her activity to see how often he/she tweets, if he/she has a healthy balance between followers and following, how big is his/hernetwork, and the quality of his/her tweets.

These are just the basics form a recruiter’s social media evaluation. Manage your online image by using applications like Reppler, which grades your postings across all networks and scores your status updates.

Social media is an opportunity to stand out from the crowd and showcase your professional expertise and image. Beside your technical expertise, employers will always place a high value on having a well-rounded addition to their team. At Relational IT, we believe that social media is a great engagement tool for both recruiters and candidates, but it requires careful planning, and ongoing strategy and commitment.

We look forward to your comments and please share your experience, tips and tricks that can be beneficial to others. Moreover, if you are an IT professional looking for positions in Cloud Computing, CRM, Energy IT, Healthcare IT, or the hottest Mobile development technologies, check out our career section and contact us for career advice. We look forward to hearing from you!