Instagram is more than just a convenient way to make your friends jealous of your brunch experience. It can also help you get hired – if you use it the right way. In this week’s roundup, we look at how to get a job by paying attention to companies’ social media feeds, plus why you should embrace change, and why you don’t need to feel alone if you’re unemployed.
(Photo Credit: Death to the Stock Photo)
Aja Frost at The Muse: How to Use Instagram to Get the Job
Frost writes about how she warmed up a frosty interviewer by showing that she cared about the company’s culture:
“And I really love your company’s Taco Tuesdays celebrations,” I said. “It’s awesome that even in a fairly large company, you can have the CEO and CFO chowing on carne asada next to a marketing intern next to an engineer. Plus, tacos.”
The interviewer, who up until this point had been polite, but pretty reserved, suddenly lit up.
“I’m obsessed with Taco Tuesday,” she gushed. “When we hit our quarterly growth goal, management actually hired three different taco trucks to park outside the office. I ate so much I couldn’t look at shredded cabbage for months.”
After getting the interviewer to show some enthusiasm, it turned from the standard interrogation into a real conversation. When I sent her my thank you note, I included a couple taco places I wanted to try, and she responded with a taco bucket list of her own.
I landed that internship.
Oh, and that Taco Tuesday anecdote? Pretty sure none of the other candidates mentioned it. After all, it wasn’t on the company website, blog, or LinkedIn profile. One of the employees had posted it to Instagram.
Marc Chernoff at Marc and Angel Hack Life: Why It’s Time to Move on and Embrace Change
Few of us love change, but we know that it’s part of life. That’s the first of seven reasons to embrace change provided at Marc and Angel‘s latest post:
Everything changes, whether you embrace change or not. – If nothing ever changed there would be no sunrise the next morning. Most of us are comfortable where we are even though the whole universe is constantly changing around us. Learning to accept this is vital to our happiness and general success. Because only when we change, do we grow, and begin to see a world we never knew was possible. And don’t forget, however good or bad a situation is now, it will change. That’s the one thing you can count on. So embrace it, and realize that change happens for a reason. It won’t always be easy or obvious at first, but in the end it will be worth it.
Anonymous at Lady Unemployed: Unemployed? You’re Not Alone
Unemployment is hard for a lot of reasons, not just the obvious financial ones. If you’re out of work, you know the secret truth: being unemployed is lonely and isolating, even if you didn’t love your old job or feel particularly friendly with your former co-workers.
For this reason, the latest anonymous submission over at Lady Unemployed will resonate with anyone who’s ever lost a job:
What I feel worst about is getting through each day knowing virtually all my friends have good jobs now and are living their lives stably and I am not. Something that also gets me down is having interviewers judge me for “not going for a more challenging career based around my qualifications and experience” when that is what I have been doing, only not getting anywhere.
Of course, the irony is that most people reading his or her words probably relate. In short, anonymous poster, you’re not alone. And because you shared your story, readers will know they’re not, either.
Tell Us What You Think
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