Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Get Pinning On Pinterest For A Job!

If you’re like me, someone who likes to collect things, you'll love Pinterest!

Pinterest is a place where you collect great “stuff” all in one place.

Have you ever had one of those cork pin boards where you’d pin pictures of places around the world that you want to visit, or gorgeous recipes that one day you would attempt to make or in my case it was my dream house, with all the latest home gadgets. Welcome to the art of pinning onto boards, social bookmarking and networking in a beautiful place called Pinterest.

When people talk about Pinterest they often chat about the great boards for wedding dresses or the beauty tip boards and it does sound rather feminine. It’s true that the large majority of pinners are female, many boards are created with a female audience in mind however it now attracts many businesses.

Go to PINTEREST and register

Once you’ve registered you can browse “pins” or put a search in of your own or start to follow boards. When you’re brave enough you can start creating boards yourself by browsing the internet for good pictures to pin or by re-pinning other peoples Pinterest pins onto your boards.

How does Pinterest help anyone to get a job?

Pinterest is a great place to showcase your personal brand, projects you’ve worked on and get to see behind the scenes of companies.

Remember the businesses that I said it now attracts, the first step to take is to check to see if the place you’d like to work at is using Pinterest. If they are using Pinterest then make sure to follow their boards.

Businesses will use the Pinterest boards to showcase their location they’re based at, job roles, charities they support, their social, fun side and the causes they believe in. By following their boards you’ll get to see what really makes them tick and wether you’re the type of person that would suit working there.

How would you alert them to you?

Make sure to like their pins by clicking the heart icon, comment on their pins and re pin their pins to your boards.

Let’s say they’re based in Cambridge, so create a board on great places in Cambridge and pin their pins onto it. Create a “Where I’d like to work” board & re-pin them onto that.

Perhaps you want to work at the local estate agents, so create a property board and re-pin their pins onto it.

If the place you’d like to work at hasn’t got an account on Pinterest yet, then create a “great place to work at” board, pinning pictures from their website, awards they’ve won, who they supply to etc.. Once the board is completed send them a link to it, they’ll soon notice you then! This would work really well for anyone who wants to become a community manager, marketing assistant or a social media manager.

Attract employers with your boards

This is the fun part, creating boards. If you’re a creative this will come quite naturally for you. Showcasing your creative side using Pinterest can be quite indulgent.

Hairdressers create boards on up to the minute styles
Chefs showcase fabulous dishes
Pet groomers pin pictures of cheeky dogs
Fashion designers have boards on what’s hot
Interior designers get creative with kitchen design boards, bedroom design boards and so on

Marketing people usually create wonderful boards for themselves. They’ll have boards on great company case studies, old school marketing, social media and industry specific marketing.

But what if you’re an accountant? Just a little bit of imagination and you can showcase yourself as forward thinking accountant on Pinterest. Create a money board, a board with tax tips, accountancy humour board and social media for accountants.

Surf the internet for good pictures to pin and this will then create a link back to the website for your followers to read more. Your Pinterest boards will be a source of good information helping you to become a thought leader in your industry. If you have your own website or blog then make sure to pin photos from it as this will drive traffic back to it.

You can also pin videos to your boards and animated GIFS. One thing to know though is that currently on Pinterest Gifs are static at first until you click on them, unlike sites like Google+ where Gifs just constantly loop.

One thing to know is that if your pins are re-pinned by others then the original pinners details are always included, that’s a guaranteed path back to you. If you’ve just been re-pinned all over Pinterest and an employer or recruiter want to find you, they always can.

Create a CV board

Start with a keyword rich title e.g CV Of A Drama Teacher then make sure you fill in the description. Instead of creating one board dedicated to your CV you could use your profile with many boards making up your CV e.g A board of your skills, one for your hobbies and interests, one for your recommended reads, places you’ve worked at, countries you’ve visited and so on. Make sure you use the text box to describe each pin, this gives any employer a real insight to who you are.

Connect with career advisers

Put in career adviser or career coach into the search bar and the result is plenty of coaches and advisers for you to follow. You will find that their pin boards will be full of encouraging ideas and tips to help you secure the job of your dreams. You’ll also find that the links will lead you onto even more information which could open doors for you.

Now you’ve created your boards make sure you tell people about them, allow a link in the signature of your emails, add the link to your other on line profiles and put it on any calling or business cards you have.

JOIN Jobhop and spread the word.

Follow our boards on Pinterest

Julie Bishop Jobhop.co.uk

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