Getting Hired Through Social Media: It's a Thing Now

July 23, 2013

Social media isn’t just a means to stay connected with friends and family. It has now morphed into a platform for companies to extend job offers to hopeful candidates. As Samantha Bankey discovered, social media turned out to be her career’s best friend after the tech marketing firm ePrize got a little creative and posted her job offer on Instagram. Let’s take a look how Samantha Bankey’s social media use landed her a dream opportunity and what job seekers can learn from her story.

Samantha Bankey had been an intern for ePrize, but the tech marketing company didn’t offer her a job solely because of that. According to Janice Pollard, ePrize’s digital marketing and PR executive, the company had “watched [Samantha’s] work progress over her senior year in college through her photos [on social media]” and was impressed enough to extend the job offer when a position became available.

By remaining actively engaged with ePrize, Samantha Bankey was able to keep up with the brand’s happenings and, without knowing, allow them to track her professional development throughout the duration of her college career. This goes to show that, as a professional, you should always maintain a clean slate when posting to social networking sites because you never know who is lurking in the shadows and examining your online activity.

Here are a few key facts to consider if you’re want to cater your social media profiles to catch the eye of prospective employers:

Do You Know What You're Worth?

1. Social media can be used to express your professional and personal interests through the content you post and share, as long as it’s tasteful and appropriate. A picture of you proudly sporting your alma mater’s logo may catch the attention of an employer who just so happened to attend the same college, which could be the advantage you need to get noticed and get hired.

2. Social media is a way to validate that you are capable of using proper grammar and spelling. Take a quick peek at some of the habitual grammatical “oopsies” that run amok on social media sites:

Their, there, and they’re Your and you’re Where, were, we’re It’s, its Effect, affect Whether, weather To, too, two

3. As long as you aren’t being too overzealous or vain, social media can also serve as a great platform to exhibit your academic and career accomplishments. An example would be posting a picture of a recent award or certification that you obtained and attaching the caption, “Finally!” That’s an acceptable way to broadcast a success without coming across as conceited.

As Samantha Bankey’s story proves, social media is a great way to build your personal brand online and share aspects of your professional development for others (mainly employers) to observe. You never know: if you play your social media cards right, you might be the next lucky new hire to receive a job offer online and become a viral sensation for all to see!

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