Episode 5 – How to use social media in your job search with Mildred Talabi

December 15, 2014 Podcast

Welcome to episode 5 of the Graduate Job Podcast!

In this fifth episode I speak with award winning careers blogger Mildred Talabi as we explore the topic of using social media in your job hunt. Unsure of how to use Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google + effectively in your job search? Then this episode is for you.

You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Additionally, you can subscribe via iTunes or Stitcher radio.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • How to use social media in your job search – 2.50
  • 5 tips for optimising your LinkedIn account – 6.56
  • How to make effective use of Twitter as a job hunting tool – 13.31
  • How to build a network using Twitter – 17.20
  • Tips on how to separate your professional and personal online personas – 21.20
  • Advice on the use of Facebook in your job search – 22.00
  • How to ensure your Facebook profile doesn’t hinder your chances of landing your dream job – 27.02
  • Using Google+ as a tool to interact with companies and individuals – 28.58

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

7 Keys to a Winning CV: How to Create a CV That Gets Results (Harriman Business Essentials) (Mildred’s book on creating a winning CV – Click image below to buy on Amazon!)

www.linkedin.com

www.twitter.com

www.facebook.com

https://plus.google.com/

Wright Management survey examining technology’s growing role in job hunting

Careerbuilder.co.uk survey that 55% of employers reject candidates after social media search

Google Alerts

Transcript – Episode 5 – Social Media with Mildred Talabi

Announcer: Welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast; your home for weekly information and inspiration to help you get the graduate job of your dreams.

James: Hello, and welcome to the fifth episode of the Graduate Job Podcast. Today I speak with author and blogger Mildred Talabi as we cover how to effectively use social media in your job hunt. Not sure on the best way to use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ then this episode is for you. Ready? Let’s go straight to episode 5.

James:  Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Graduate Job Podcast. I’m very excited to be speaking today to Mildred Talabi. Mildred is an award winning careers blogger, speaker and writer with over eight years experience in the career industry. She’s the author of 7 Keys to a Winning CV: How to Create a CV That Gets Results (Harriman Business Essentials) and the recently launched The Science of Successful Job Hunting: Practical strategies for landing ANY job you want.

Mildred, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.

Mildred: Hello, James. Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.

James: I’ve given the listeners a brief introduction but before we dive into our topic today, would you like to introduce yourself in more detail and tell us a little bit about what you do?

Mildred: Awe, yes. Okay. So, I have been, as you mentioned, I’ve been doing, doing “speech marks” careers for about eight years now and I’ve funnily enough, I’ve actually got into it by accident when – because my background is in the media and I trained as a journalist for a while and trained as a journalist and worked in the media for a while and it was while working as the assistant editor of a magazine, about seven or so years ago, that I actually had to recruit people as well as do everything else that I had to do as part of my role and that’s when I came in contact with so many awful CVs, cover letters, and that people would just send into us. After awhile my entrepreneurial mindset kind of kicked in and said, you know what? I think there’s a market here for me to help people to create CVs, application forms, cover letters, you know, that sorts of thing that will help people get jobs and that is something I started doing on the side as well as working in the media. And then fast forward all these years, it’s just kind of really taken over and replaced my main job. So, I’m no longer in the media, as such.

And the careers thing is the main thing that I do. I write a careers blog fairly weekly. I write, roughly, once a week on my website, mildredtalabi.com and yeah, I run workshops and I give talks at colleges, universities, and other employment events. I enjoy helping people get jobs, really. That’s one of the things I’m really into. So, yeah, this is great.

James: Excellent. And today we’re going to cover a topic which I’ve been asked quite a few times about, by students. It’s one that you’ve covered in depth in your book which is using social media to help you find a job. So, starting from the beginning, imagine I’m at the university or I’ve recently graduated, where and how would you recommend that I use social media in my job search?

Mildred: Yeah, that’s really good. So, as you mentioned, it’s one of the key things of The Science of Successful Job Hunting, because the whole idea behind the book is that job hunting is a science. You don’t do it by accident. There are certain things that you can do and there are certain principles you can apply that will guarantee you certain results. So, when it comes to using social media in your job search— I think the great thing about graduates today is that you’re in a privileged position of having social media to use in your job search because in my days — and that makes me sound really old — but when I went to university, we didn’t even have Facebook. We honestly didn’t have Facebook. We had Instant Messenger and things like that, but it’s advanced so much and the fact that social media has grown so rapidly is just an indication of how important it’s going to be as well in the future. So, if you’re not already on it, get on it. But I would say that the main ones that I recommend for now are LinkedIn, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, if you use it correctly, and Google+ is a rising star definitely in that field. But if you’re in a more creative environment, things like Instagram are also useful. Instagram. Pinterest. The whole idea of social media is creating an online brand for yourself and using it to get yourself out there, get yourself in front of employers and get employers to notice you and also have build an online portfolio that will sell you in the job market, in addition to your CV and everything you do outside of the social media sphere.

James: Maybe starting with LinkedIn ‘cause I think that’s the most common one from a professional perspective. I know a recent survey by Wright Management found that 94 percent of job candidates said that LinkedIn was their top social media site. Can you give us a bit more information on, you know, what LinkedIn is and how people should use it?

Mildred: Yes, absolutely. LinkedIn is actually the oldest of all the four main ones that I mentioned; in fact all the ones I mentioned because that started before Facebook, right around 2002, I believe it was. So LinkedIn was started as a professional network. So the whole idea of it was and is for people to comment with each other in a professional setting. Unlike Facebook was started as more of a social thing, LinkedIn has pretty much has always been about work and professional advancement that way. Now, the beauty of LinkedIn is that it’s a really great way of A; making contact in the field that you want to go into but also B; having a place where you can interact and connect with your contacts on a regular basis. And then also, the third additional one is that from the contacts that you know, you can get to know other contacts through the whole first connection, second to first degree connection, second degree connection that LinkedIn uses. So you can expand your network very well through LinkedIn, and keep it professional. And because it allows you to sort— It’s like a social media version of your CV. So it allows you to upload your CV and you can edit it as you want to and have your picture there. And also, it allows you to have recommendations which are the equivalent of job references on CV. So it’s almost like having everything that the employer needs right there in front of you. So if somebody is looking at your profile, they should be able to make a good judgment of what you’re about and if they’re interested, they can contact you from there. So, there’s so many ways to use LinkedIn but I think that would be my number one tool for job seekers to use today.

James: What are the best ways that people can—   So having signed up and they’ve got a LinkedIn account, how can they optimize it so it’s going to be most efficient for their job hunt?

Mildred: There’s so many ways. In the book I list five key ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile. The number, the first one I talk about is having a profile picture, and a very good profile picture. Now, there’s so many people who A; they put up a LinkedIn profile and there’s no picture with it. The good thing about having a picture is that when you see a picture of somebody, it allows you to build connection even further with them and it builds a trust. When somebody doesn’t have a picture and you communicate over a silhouette, it’s not quite the same. But also, on that not having a picture, it’s not just, don’t just whack on any old picture of yourself at a party or something like that, you know. Find a nice professional picture of yourself that you can put up there and better still using a LinkedIn and across all your social media ‘cause it’s about being consistent with your brand, because whether you know it or not, you are a brand. So yeah, I would say the first one is have a good profile picture. Then in the book I’ve got a professional photographer, Myles Willis, who I’ve worked with and he gives a whole, a lot, he does a whole chapter on how you take a good picture without, if you don’t have the budget to pay for a professional.

The second thing would be to write your headline. So, the headline is what people see right next to your name. So write a headline that captures who you are, what you’re about professionally.

Third, number 3 I would say import the best parts of your CV. So, unlike your CV where you pretty much include everything in terms of what you’ve done, with your LinkedIn you can target it to a particular industry. So if you’re looking at going into marketing and you’ve got retail on your CV, you don’t have to include that in your LinkedIn profile because it’s up to you to be as flexible with it as you want.

Number four, we talked about recommendations already, but definitely get recommendations. These are from people you’ve worked with. Maybe lecturers, if you haven’t had that much experience at work. Just people who can endorse you and say yeah, this person is a great character and this is what they can bring to your organization. So, that’s important to get.

And then lastly it’s just to have a, what is called a vanity URL. So once you do have your LinkedIn set up, you just have a URL that has your name on it. So it will be LinkedIn.com, forward slash, Mildred Talabi, or whatever your name is. Just so it’s easier to share around. And also, you could then include that on your CV which I highly recommend doing, when you have a good LinkedIn profile.

James: Yeah, you make some brilliant points there. Just touching in on the vanity URL; that’s one of the things, having read the book, I know I need to go back to my LinkedIn profile and just double check if I’ve actually done that and if not, make sure I get a decent one.

But the first point you made around the picture, I think is such an important, important part and as you mentioned, if you see profiles without a picture, immediately it creates suspicions in your mind when you, you know, if you can’t see the person and begin to create that bond with who you are going    to be speaking to. It’s difficult.

Mildred: Yeah.

James: But also, you see lots of people with very ropey pictures taken on phone or the old classic where they’ve got their arm around somebody and they’ve sliced off the person next to them, like on a dating profiles.

Mildred: Yeah.

James:  And it’s so cheap now to get a professional picture done. I know the Snappy Snaps picture place at the end of my street, they’ve got a special big advert in the front of their window saying, get your professional LinkedIn picture done here.

Mildred: Oh, wow. That’s keeping up with the times.

James:   Yeah, no, definitely. I think it’s cheap as well. You know, for 20 pounds or maybe less, you know, you can get a really good picture, proper background so you can look professional and as you said, you can then get it across the different formats we’re going to talk about today, whether it’s LinkedIn, have that picture on your Twitter profile, your professional Twitter profile, as well so you can create that standard image.

Mildred: And the thing about the pictures, when you do have a good picture you, roughly you can keep the same picture for about two years, two to three years ‘cause our faces don’t change that often when we become adults. So, if you’re making an investment like, as you said, like 20 pounds for a LinkedIn profile, that’s a really good investment over, spread out over three years. So, it’s well worth making sure you have a good picture online.

James: And also the point you made on recommendations, I agree can be very powerful but if you are sending recommendations to people, don’t just do the box standard send recommendation where it all then comes across to the person who receives it. It just says, hi, please recommend me.

Mildred: Yeah.

James: If you’re going to do it, tailor them a 30 second note, hey, Barry, please, could you give me a recommendation specifically focusing on X, Y, and Z ‘cause otherwise I’ve had loads come through where if the person can’t even be bothered to send me a 30 second note asking for, asking exactly what they want then why should I spend 10 minutes, 20 minutes drafting them a recommendation?

Mildred: Absolutely, I agree and I have the same policy as well. So, yeah, that’s something that you need to take time and do properly.

James: Another useful thing I’ve found is with LinkedIn is being able to then follow the companies that you’re specifically interested in. So then you can keep on top of, you know, when they’ve got jobs available or, you know, if they’re having new business openings or mergers or et cetera. It just allows you to keep on top of the latest news related to those companies and also, they can see that you’re following them and it immediately shows that you’ve got an interest in that company.

Mildred: Yeah. An additional benefit to that as well is, when you have people in your network who are connected to that company, LinkedIn will let you know. So, if they do have a job vacancy going, instead of going directly, you can, maybe, go through a warm contact that you already have and maybe get some tips or advice from them on how to, you know, succeed in this particular company and then go back and do your application. So, it’s definitely a good way to get in there sometimes, yeah.

James:   Okay. So, then moving on to something I know which is close to your heart, Twitter. I follow you on Twitter. You know, you’re very avid Tweeter and I saw that The Guardian named you as one of the top career tweeters of 2014. Congratulations.

Mildred: Thank you. That award didn’t exist like a year ago.

James:   How can people then make effective use of Twitter, not just as a, you know, way to keep in touch with friends but as a, again, a job hunting tool?

Mildred: Again, Twitter. What I really love about Twitter and I think the main benefit to somebody who’s job hunting is that in the old days, you know, if you wanted to get in touch with a hiring manager or HR person, CEO, et cetera, whatever it is, of the company you’d want to work for, you’d have to jot them an email and hope you get a response; or you can pick up the phone and call, and usually you get put   through to a receptionist or secretary whose sole job is to stop you from gaining access because this person is really busy and they don’t want to hear from you. So, what now happens with Twitter is that this middleman has now gone, middleman or middle-woman, because on Twitter the CEO, especially those who are trying to, you know, keep up to date with technology, they’re there. They’re tweeting. They’ve got their own account. So now you can connect directly with people. You can connect directly with employers. You can connect directly with HR managers. You can connect directly with people who are out there tweeting and looking to build an audience and follower for themselves as well. So you can now have direct conversations, whereas before you had to pass through gatekeepers which is very difficult. So I think that’s one of the biggest benefits of Twitter, is that you can just get straight there.

Having said that though, it doesn’t mean that the best way to use Twitter is not to tweet people and say, please hire me or please give me a job.   Yeah, that won’t work. You know, first of all, like with all social media, it’s all about building relationship. It’s about developing relationships with people and building relationships. And if I’m honest with you, sometimes it can take you a while. You know, it’s not an instant quick fix. Okay, I’m on Twitter now, tomorrow I’m going to get a job. It doesn’t work like this. Just bear it in mind that this is a long term strategy in terms of social media. It’s developing your brand and building your online brand, building your connections and your network, all preparing you for when that time comes, when you may need to move on. It may be for your first job, or your second job or your third job, but doing all that now is really helpful for those times.

So, yeah, it’s using Twitter to get in touch directly with those people who are out there. And then you can also use Twitter to follow thought leaders in your industry. So again, similar to what you mentioned in following pages, it keeps you up to date with what’s happening in your industry and what articles you should be reading, and possibly re-tweeting as well, so you can show that you’re engaged and you understand what’s happening in your industry.

And then, finally, you can actually get a job through it directly. So, in the book I’ve got an example of a young lady called Ulrike who graduated in Germany and was able to get a job in London in social media via Twitter. So, it’s things that it happens all the time. You can get a job directly through Twitter as well and it has its own job search mechanisms that you use using hashtag which is all, that’s more the detailed version of it, but as a basic, it’s really a good way to stay in touch with employers and to stay in touch with what’s happening in your industry and jobs that are out there.

James:  So you mentioned not just getting in touch with people directly and saying, hi, can I have a job, please? How would you recommend, then, going about building that interaction and building a presence on Twitter?

Mildred: Yeah. I’d say first of all, so when you first start following people, it’s engage with their content. So if they’re tweeting, you know, so maybe they’ve tweeted an article they’ve read and liked, and if you’ve got something to say about that article, just A;, re-tweet it because by re-tweeting you’re increasing their exposure and they’ll be happy with that. But to also just jot them up a quick response and say, hey, great read. I particularly enjoyed X, Y and Z. So that could initiate a conversation. So, for example, with my Twitter, I don’t have massive followers – I have about 2,000 or something at the moment, but—-

James: That’s still pretty big.

Mildred: Yeah, but for some people have thousands and thousands but I do my very best to get back to everybody who replies to me directly. So it’s a case of, most people have that kind of mindset about it. So, if someone is taking the time out to read one of my blogs and they leave a comment and reply to me on Twitter and say, hey, I enjoyed this, et cetera, I would in turn go back, check out their profile, and then I would send the response. So already just by that small interaction you’re now on my radar, where you may not have been before. And if you do this often, so if you constantly engage with somebody — not all the time because you might look a bit stalker-ish, you know — but if you just – I don’t know – maybe every so often just jot them a quick comment and not just— You know, be genuine. Don’t just flatter, like but genuinely, oh, I read this and this, and this was good. Or maybe if you see something that you think might interest them, send them a link and say, hey, I’ve read this and thought of you but it’s just building and developing that relationship. And what happens is your name starts to become familiar to that person and it means that you’re softening the relationship. Whereas it was a cold contact, now it’s getting warmer and warmer and if the day comes that, let’s say a position comes up in their company or something like that and then you apply, it’s that, oh, yeah, I know her from Twitter; or I know him from Twitter and the relationship has now been established that wasn’t there before. So, it’s the slow roast method but it works. It’s more effective for building longer term relationships.

James: Definitely.  And as you mentioned, if you’re going to tweet, then make sure it’s something interesting. Make sure it’s an interesting article that you’ve read or something that’s going to be relevant to the industry specifically that you’re interested in.

Mildred: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.  And on that note, so as I said, I would go and I would check this person’s profile. Now, a lot of people waste the opportunity that the profile gives. So, where you have the opportunity to write a small bio about yourself that explains what you’re about, some people write things like, cat lover, you know. I’m like, okay? That does mean nothing, tells me nothing about you. It doesn’t— It’s just nothing. So again, if you’re going to use Twitter professionally, make sure that profile is something— Like I would make it a short summary of your, what you would put at the personal profile of your CV. So, something that summarized who you are, what you’re about, what your interests are. So, if I’m looking at you, let’s say I’m an employer and I work in marketing and here you want to get into marketing and on your profile it says, marketing graduate looking for next big break; love cats. You can add the “love cats” but just don’t let it be the only thing on your profile. So, at least now that   gives me more information about you and it makes me think, hum, okay, I’ll bear that in mind just in case I’ve got something going on. So, yeah, don’t miss the opportunity to, again, sell yourself in your profile.

James:   Definitely. I think it’s a really key point that you mentioned with the professional aspect is, if you are going to, you want to be tweeting socially, have two distinct accounts; have a personal account and have a professional account and you want to be keeping the two separately. You don’t want to be one minute tweeting people about marketing graduate looking for an internship, and then the next    messaging your mates talking about, you know, going out that night or something that you’ve just seen on TV, lol. Draw that distinction between the professional and the personal.

Mildred: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I would agree with that.

James: So, moving onto another area where the professional and personal might blur is Facebook. So you talk in the book about how people can use Facebook. Can you actually use Facebook in a job hunting sense, or is it just a question of damage limitation?

Mildred: Ah, very good question. I think, I think probably the first would be damage limitation because a lot of people, myself included, when I first started using Facebook it was on a social basis and I didn’t intend   to use it professionally but that was, I don’t know, down around the early days when Facebook started. So, along the way I realized I wanted to use my Facebook professionally but I’d done, I’d used it socially quite a bit. So what I actually did, like what you said in Twitter, I have two Facebook accounts. I have my personal, private one which is under a completely different name and hopefully no one will ever find me in there except for the small circle of friends and family members that I’ve go on there. And then I’ve got my public professional one which anybody can see and view. So, I think the first way — because so many people start on Facebook socially and it is meant to be more a social than a professional network — is damage limitation. So, it’s about being aware of, being aware of the fact that A; most employers these days do Google you and when they Google you beforehand, Facebook is one of the ones that comes up tops. And they can see, you can see quite a lot without being friends with somebody. You can see a lot of their, in terms of their profile, their postings, because Facebook are always, their privacy settings, as we all know, are not the best, even if you are quite diligent at making sure everything is ticked off or un-ticked, et cetera. There’s still that danger that there might be things out there about you that Facebook will allow them to show in the stream, in the search fields, that don’t do you justice. So I’d say the first thing is damage limitation. Use it to change, change it and make sure you pictures that you post of yourself— If you don’t want them — I have a general rule – if you don’t want them public, don’t use the internet. Go back to the old days of, I don’t know, send it by text messages and print and download pictures. Maybe send it by email but don’t put it out there in social media because who knows, one day the whole internet will be widely open and everything we put out there will be public regardless of privacy settings; but that’s another film in itself.

James: Yep.

Mildred: So I would say first of all, damage control on Facebook, but you can also use it professionally in terms of, again, ‘because it’s all about network. There’s a different network that you attract on Facebook than you would on LinkedIn, for example. So with Facebook it tends to be friends, family, people you know a little bit closer and in the book I talk about how one of the things to realize about job hunting is that it’s a process that involved everybody. So, although it’s you looking for a job, the more you can get the people around you involved in your job search process, the better it is because now you have a big network of people looking out for you in jobs that are within your field. So, this is how you can use Facebook. You can use it. Every so often just let people know what you’re looking for, put things out there around your area and just get it into people’s minds that, okay, you know, Mildred is looking for –– I don’t know — marketing jobs. So, if anybody sees anything around the area, they’ll be triggered by that memory because you post about it so often or you post about marketing and then they’ll contact you, hopefully, and give you a lead that might help you get the next job.   So that’s one way.

Another way is also, again, company pages. Companies use, they have company pages on Facebook which you can follow and like in the same way that you can on LinkedIn. So that’s also a good way of A; getting an understanding of what a company is like, the culture of a company because their website tends to be quite formal and it’s, you know, this is who we are buttoned up. But on Facebook most companies are a bit more informal. So you can get to see behind the scenes a little bit more and then you can also get to engage with some of the people who are responsible for the pages. So, that’s one way. And also get job postings when they put it out there. So Facebook can help you in that way, in terms of using it to research companies, using it to promote yourself and then lastly, just using it.

So, there’s a lot of people – again, this is in the book – but a lot of people say, oh, Facebook is rubbish but that’s because they set up an account and then they turn up maybe once every two weeks and say, oh, there’s nothing happening. It’s rubbish. But to get the most out of it you have to use it and that’s engaging with it, pretty much on a daily basis where possible; at least several times a week, so you can keep that network active and keep it working for you when you’re not there as well.

James:  Going back to what you said about certain people searching the internet when they’re going to be interviewing you. That’s exactly what I used to do when I was given a list of people that I was to have telephone interviews with. The first thing I’d do, out of interest would be to google them and see what came up; see if there’s anything of interest. A recent survey which I’ll link to in the Show Notes by careerbuilder.co.uk said that just under half of all recruiters used social media to search for candidates. And of that half, apparently — take these statistics with a pinch of salt – but apparently 55 percent of employees who – employers; sorry – who researched candidates on social media said they found something that caused them not to hire the candidate.

Mildred: Yeah.

James:  So, just be careful with the things, not just that you post but also that your friends might post about you.

Mildred: Yeah. Absolutely. And that one is probably even worse because I’m very guarded about what I post but then it’s when other people post and they tag you. I’m very quick to review— First of all, have the setting where you have to review the tag before it shows up on your page, and then if it’s not something you approve of, immediately un-tag yourself and take it down because otherwise it will show up and it will be connected to you somehow. So yeah, it’s very important to be aware of that too.

James:  Yep. A top tip is to set up a Google alert. So, with Google you can set up an alert for certain words. So it could be your name, and then whenever there’s anything posted on Google or posted in the internet which fits those words, you’ll get an email. It can be once a day and it will just tell you what’s come up. So, it’s an easy way to just check if there’s anything in the public realm that could impact you.

Mildred: Absolutely.

James: Okay, Mildred. We’re nearly running out of time but I wanted to touch upon something that personally I have not used but you recommend which is Google+.

Mildred: Yes, Google+. And the reason I recommend it is, actually Google+ is the baby of the social media platform. It’s only been going for about two years or so, but it’s already the second highest. It’s already got the second amount of users, right after Facebook. So it’s climbing quite quickly and the thing about it is because it’s Google and Google will take over the world one day, probably, but it’s all interlinked with the rest of Google. So it’s interlinked with YouTube. It’s interlinked with Google Search , and everything else; Gmail, et cetera, which means that once you have a profile on Google+ your search ability in Google goes up as well because they’re tied in together and it’s like a bridge between LinkedIn and Facebook, is the way I see Google+ is. It’s a professional setting but it gives you a bit more space, a bit more space to connect with people than LinkedIn who are quite strict in terms of how you connect with people as well. So, I would definitely say look into it. And more and more employers are going down that avenue of using Google+ and they’re doing it through things like Google Hangouts which at the beginning I mentioned that I did my book launch through Google  Hangout which is like a Skype conference call thing but Google allows you to do where you can interact with viewers and make videos that go live to the whole public, and some employers are using this as a means of sharing information about their firm and they’re also using it as a way to interview candidates as well. So, they’re using tools like Google Hangouts to interview candidates over the computer. It saves them from doing face to face interviews.

So, I think it’s definitely one to watch for the future and it’s one to dip your toes in now and— So that   when that feature does come you’ve already started on it, and again, similar, same way to all the other profiles. It’s about A; setting up your profile correctly; making sure that picture and your bio is consistent with what’s everywhere else about you; B; second thing is to create circles to separate your connections. So similar to LinkedIn, it allows you to have groups of people who have a particular interest. So you can create what’s called circles and that will group all your different people, the different people that you connect with. So you can have a marketing group, for example. You can have possible job contacts. You can even have a friends group. And the good thing about that is if you wanted to post something that you want your friends to see but you don’t want your professional network to see, then you would just post it and then share with your friends circle. So, it’s really, really good in terms of how it helps you connect with people. And there’s other things, other tips in the book on how you can make use of Google+. But I think most importantly, because of the fact that A;, it’s growing so rapidly; B; more and more employers are turning onto it and people are turning off Facebook and into things like Google+ and see, because it’s so connected with Google. So you’ve got all these additional benefits. I think it is well worth joining. At least join and then look into it as you go from there.

James:   Yeah, I have to get the Graduate Job Podcast hooked up then with Google+ because at the moment, as I said, I’ve not used it. So it’s definitely something that I will investigate.

Mildred, thank you very much for your time. Unfortunately we’re out of time now but before we finish, what’s the best way for the listeners to get in touch with you and the work that you do?

Mildred: Well, great, yeah. I am active on all the social networks I mentioned. Of them my real name Mildred Talabi. So you can tweet me at Mildred Talabi or better still, if you go to my website, www.mildredtalabi.com you can get in touch with me through there and also sign up to my career’s newsletter which comes out roughly once a week. It features my latest blog which has tips, advice on job hunting that you can use. So, I would say go to www.mildredtalabi.com. You can also find details on how to get a copy of my eBook, The Science of Successful Job Hunting from that website.

James: Excellent, and a special bonus prize for anybody who can track down Mildred’s hidden Facebook accounts.

Mildred: No. Don’t look.

James: Mildred, thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure having you on the Graduate Job Podcast.

Mildred: Thank you, James. Thank you so much. You’ve been great.

James: Take care. Thank you.

Mildred: Bye-bye.

James: Thanks again to Mildred Talabi for sharing her excellent advice on social media.

In terms of my personal top 3 points to takeaway from this episode, firstly let’s start with LinkedIn. Get a professional picture taken. Perception is reality, so if you have a professional picture guess what, that’s how people will view you. It’s cheap to do and will make you stand out from the majority of people with selfies or pictures culled from dating websites. Also with LinkedIn, as Mildred says, use the best parts of your CV. Think about the job you’re going for and make sure that everything you include is relevant and tailored specifically to that job and industry.

Secondly Twitter, As Mildred says, it’s an amazing tool for engaging with people and building relationships. The key point for me though is the engagement, make it interesting and relevant and don’t expect instant results. It’s not going to happen overnight, and is a process of engagement over time.

Finally Facebook, but this is also true for all of the other sites. For me this is all about damage limitations. Believe me that employers will be checking your online digital footprint so make sure they wont find anything you don’t want them to see. Follow Mildred’s advice and if you wouldn’t be happy with a current or future employer seeing it, don’t put it online in the first place.

So there you go, episode 5 on social media in the bag. The full transcript of today’s episode can be found on the website at graduatejobpodcast.com/socialmedia. Get in touch with us via twitter @gradjobpodcast. Finally please leave a review on Itunes, I read everyone and it’s great to hear your feedback.

Do join us next week when we have author, coach and blogger David Shindler discussing the transition from university to work. I hope you enjoyed the episode today, but more importantly I hope you use it and apply it. See you next week.

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