Social media has totally changed everyone’s lives. Not only on a personal level but also and above all on professionally. Instagram, in particular, has led to the development and introduction of new careers, and have also had an impact on long-established careers and standard processes. Every department in a company has introduced social media as new tools for their strategies: increasing sales, creating brand awareness, understanding customer opinions, responding directly to requests …
Even the team such as the one of the recruiters, who work more with figures internal the company, are increasingly using social media for their job.
Recruiters use social media in two ways:
- To understand more about a candidate when receiving the application
- To hire the right person for a specific role
The recruiter visits the online presence of candidates to understand more about their personal life. Our travels, daily habits, relationships with other people shape ourselves and represent our personality. So the recruiters check the social profiles to understand if the person reflects the values ​​of the brand.
More and more employees today are the new brand ambassadors, and companies want to make sure that the person they hire doesn’t only have the appropriate professional skills for a role but that also reflects the moral and social values ​​of the brand.
Instagram is a powerful tool and I’ve explained how to use it for networking, for your personal brand, how Instagram comments can boost your career, how to use it in general for your career and in this post I want to give you advice on how to make your Instagram profile recruiters proof so it will be ready when you submit your application or when a recruiter is looking for the perfect candidate.
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2. Add career/skills-related keywords in your bio: stylist, social media manager, fashion marketing graduate, fashion design student, merchandiser, communication specialist… Even if you don’t currently have a job, add keywords relevant to the job you want to get: are you looking for a job as a fashion PR? Then add Fashion PR or fashion communications or other relevant keywords to your bio.
3. Delete the photos that you don’t want the recruiters to see: those of you at 4 am with 3 beers in hand or those in which you wear inappropriate clothes and, from now on, be careful to not publish similar content, otherwise set the profile as private, but make sure none of your future colleagues or recruiters are among your followers.
Setting the profile as private, however, has the disadvantage of not being found when a recruiter is using Instagram to hire, so consider whether it is better to avoid posting some content or making the profile private and missing job opportunities.
4. Add your email in the bio (also make sure it is professional: [email protected], [email protected]) so you’re easy to get in contact with.
5. It doesn’t matter to have thousands of followers
6. Mix personal photos (your travels, your dog, your outfits …) to professional ones: behind the scenes of your work, shootings, your articles, screenshots of fashion industry articles (if you want to work in e-commerce post in your stories and in some posts on the feed screenshots of articles related to the fashion e-commerce you have read) in this way those who land on your profile understand that you are interested and updated on the subject. To get an idea of ​​how to use Instagram, look at how these professional fashion profiles use it
- https://www.instagram.com/denagia/
- https://www.instagram.com/felicitykay/
- https://www.instagram.com/lilahramzi/
7.Use the appropriate hashtags. Recruiters today use social media to hire the ideal candidate. The hashtags are up to now the best way to be found on social media based on specific keywords, so whenever you publish a professional/career-related post, make sure you use the appropriate hashtags that are relevant to your current or ideal career: #fashionpr #fashionmarketing #fashioneditor #fashionjob #fashioncareer #workinginfashion #fashionjournalist #merchandiser …
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Clean up your Instagram profile and see it as your own ID card from today, don’t use it exclusively as a professional portfolio because recruiters also want to understand what kind of person you are and how you spend your free time. Therefore create a nice balance of personal and career/fashion-related posts and don’t stress too much on the quality of the photos, you don’t need to post professional photos, just a photo taken with your iphone and a simple natural filter will be fine.
