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What social media can do for you

Author: Mshahara Kenya   |   Posted on: September 13, 2011

Nowadays, unless you have a speciality degree or an extra diploma, you have no chance of differentiating yourself from the thousands of students who graduate every year. Although you may have the competencies and unique qualities that an organization is searching for and they would be ultra lucky to have you in their organization, how would they be able to get to know you? Organizations are bombarded by hundreds of CVs at any one time, from students who have similar qualifications and yours may be lost in the mêlée. So how do you put yourself out there without totally relying on your CV as a foot in the door?

And this is where personal branding comes in. Let's focus on social media as a platform for branding. It’s cheap, easy to use, doesn't require excess effort and is multi-faceted.

Almost every Kenyan student has a Facebook (FB) profile that they use to keep their friends updated on what they thinking and feeling, their interests and experiences. With all this activity going on, when you Google your name, your FB profile is most probably the first search result to pop up. Now assume your potential employer wants to find out more about you and decides to Google your name, what would you rather they find, the sultry details of that Friday you don't remember or a catalogue of the holistic activities you are involved in. That's not to say you can't have your fun, but know that there is technically nothing private on the internet, and no organization wants someone in their organization who might cause embarrassment for them.

So what to do? With the resources FB provides for you, you can put up photos AND videos of the wholesome activities that you take part in such as some good, clean fun with your friends, concerts or festivals you've attended, that moment when you conquered Mt. Kenya or when you performed that service to the community. FB for the moment is the face of your online presence and it may be used to gauge your worth as a person.

For any students preparing to enter the job market, a LinkedIn profile is vital.  LinkedIn is a social network, like FB, but for professionals. This is where your "friends" are your classmates, colleagues and people you with to connect with at a professional level. Creating your profile simply involves listing your education background, professional experiences and accomplishments and finally uploading your resume (CV). LinkedIn prompts you to garner recommendations from people you have worked with as a sort of referee pool. If you've never had a job, fear not, you can ask for recommendations from school mentors, lecturers who know you and from the presidents of extra-curriculum organizations you belong to.

Setting up connections is a pretty straight forward process. Start small with your classmates, then to other members of your school community such as lecturers, the dean e.t.c. Then move on to people you would like to know better professionally. People on LinkedIn generally don't allow connections with people they don't know in real-life, so send "friend" requests with a little introduction about yourself and why you would like to connect with them.  9 out of 10 times you will get a favourable response and a connection would be made.
  Your updates on LinkedIn shouldn't be like those on any other social network you belong to. People there don't really care that you are hungry at the time or are about to go to sleep! We aren't saying you can't be fun and humorous, as its part of your personality, but lay of the overly personal information.  Keep in mind that a potential employer will be reading them, so keep them on the topics that you would be able to talk to your boss about. LinkedIn provides the opportunity for you to build your credibility as an expert in your field of study, so join some groups, contribute to conversations and put your name out there.

On Twitter, there are no barriers to connecting with CEOs, HRDs of organizations on a semi-professional manner. You could say Twitter is a mix of Facebook, as a social function and LinkedIn in its professional capacity. These people aren't on Twitter because they want to be bombarded by job-seekers with their requests for jobs and opportunities to meet.  No, they are there to build social connections that may or may not yield some professional opportunity in the future. To get into their good backs, join their conversations and build a relationship that is beneficial for the both of the parties.

For those wanting to go a step further, you can create a web page that describes you. A simple website that provides information about you, your achievements, your on-going projects, how to contact you could be an option too. If you have interest in writing including a blog for expressing your thoughts on what interests you, proving that you are a though leader in different aspects.

All this would lead to a sort of headhunting mentality, because you are worth the effort and just like everyone searches on Google for products and services to buy, the new age of technology and the pace at which it is being embraced by Kenyan corporations, they may one day Google to find their employees, and you know, if you aren't on the 1st page of search results you don’t exist.