I was laid off in 2020—my first time without a job. It didn’t help one bit that I’d moved across the country for the gig only six months earlier, but that’s Covid for ya. That left me stuck in New York City, isolated in quarantine, with no income, the week my sublease was ending—not exactly my most comfortable self.
I turned to social media for help because of course I did—24 minutes after I tweeted I was available for hire, I got the DM that brought me to Twitch, my last role before joining the Brew.
Social media’s an incredible tool for finding your next job. Between pandemic layoffs, “quiet quitting,” and the long-overdue pursuit of work-life balance, people often want to help people.
I wanna share a bit on the mindset, strategy, and Twitter/LinkedIn tactics I’ve used when turning to social media for the job hunt.
Hang up the wallpaper
Let’s polish those social profiles for all that attention that’ll come your way, you amazing job candidate, you.
You’ll wanna focus on the Job Experience section of LinkedIn. For every gig, you should list:
- An explanation of your role
- An example of a project you’re proud of
- Data results from your role + the project
You’ve gotta be brief on a résumé, but you get to wax poetic on LinkedIn. Get every detail in—it’s as much a place to flex your experience as a database of your work history.
Commit to being #OpenToWork
I’ve chatted with a handful of friends who’ve been laid off recently and asked about how they’re approaching the job hunt. It’s tough out there—some struggle to get interviews; others worry about their mortgages and families, ready to take the first thing that comes along. What surprised me: Not one of them was using LinkedIn’s #OpenToWork profile photo.
This may be my favorite LinkedIn innovation in years. The avatar is often a social media profile’s most valuable real estate, and #OpenToWork makes it clear who’s not just window shopping, but ready to buy.
When I encouraged friends to use the feature, all hemmed and hawed. Some called it corny and desperate. Others claimed they wanted to interview from a position of power, feeling like admitting they’re out of work made them less desirable. All understandable emotions, but all pride-based and hurting their chances of finding work.
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Job hunting is a volume game. The more people who know you’re available, the more random connections you’ve found, the more interview opportunities, the more likely you are to find not just a new role, but one that suits your needs. Use every social media feature that lets others know you’re available.
Loudly tweet what you’re looking for
Great, you’ve dropped that green hashtag on top of your LinkedIn avatar—now it’s time to write the social media post letting the world know you’re looking for a job.
Let’s put on our social strategy hats, talk goals for a second. We’re trying to:
- Tell your connections you’re available for hire
- Share your work experience
- Clearly articulate what type of jobs you’re looking for
- Do so in the most shareable way possible
You can hit all four bullet points in a single tweet just as easily as in a longer LinkedIn post as long as you’re concise and clear.
I’d only been at my job for six months before the layoff, and it wasn’t a natural fit (which my boss and I knew up front—our scheme was to sneak me in as a strategy director to bring more social media thinking to an important client). Here’s how I translated those four bullets into my “Hire me” tweet.
Remember the one-page résumé rule? This is the one-tweet résumé rule. Feel free to write a longer thread sharing more about you + what you’re looking for, but you still need to get all those bullets into one primary tweet so your friends can share and newbies can understand who you are + your ambitions in a quick 280-character glance.
Apply the same thinking when writing your LinkedIn post. Yes, you have many more characters to share your story, but LinkedIn truncates your text behind a “see more” link after three to five lines. Hit the bullets in your first two sentences, then elaborate in your longer post.
Start chatting
I’m really trying to avoid the word “networking,” but go…network. You’re a fully armed and operational battle station. Every LinkedIn message you send shows you’re #OpenToWork, every click on your profile is essentially a résumé view—now go chat with folks.