Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Stalk Your Next Employer
Before I start I want you to know that I’m not encouraging you to sit outside some employers house with binoculars or book a hotel room next to theirs, stalking is very bad, I’m suggesting a more subtle way of stalking using social media AKA Targeting.
Today job seekers have to be thinking one step ahead of everyone, they need to learn all about marketing themselves and how to attract the employer of your dreams, so lets throw a bit of light stalking into the mix.
How do you stalk your next employer?
First you will need to know what companies you’d like to work at, once you know that then there’s plenty of ways.
Just like 80% of employers would google you if you applied for a job you too can use Google to find out some information on them.
Just by putting a few choice words in with the name of your preferred company will bring back some contact names e.g I searched for the name of a company I liked plus HR manager/ recruiter/ hiring manager , all searches brought me back contact names.
Do a company search on Linkedin.
You may notice on the right at the top of the company page there is a list of employees and how you’re connected to them, click see all and check to see if the hiring manager is in that list. If he or she is then you can either get introduced to them via your first connections or view their profile, check out what groups they’re in, join one of the groups and connect like that. When Linkedin asks you how you know Mr or Ms hiring manager you can honestly say you’re in the same group. When you’re viewing an employers profile, in this scenario I do not see the benefit of viewing it anonomysly, by viewing it publicly you’re making yourself known and you want to be known.
By putting the company name into the search on Twitter it will give you results of everyone connected or talking about it, from this information you can start following relevant people, and other people employed by the company, these are the people who could lead you to the hiring manager or internal recruiter. Checking out the photos is a good move too as people tag other people in photos, this is a great way to get names of decision makers at companies.
A useful tool to use is Followerwonk, by putting in the company name into the search facility it will bring back all the Twitter Bios which include that keyword, many employees will put who they currently work for in their Bio. The hiring manager, internal recruiter will most likely also put the company name into their Bio, as well as Managing directors and owners of organisations.
Hootsuite
Set up a column on Hootsuite or if you prefer Tweetdeck, and use the company name as the keyword. On your dashboard you will get a column of everyone talking about the company, the chatter may consist of consumers and employees, it may also include chat from your next employer. By monitoring this column someone will lead you to your next employer.
So what do you do once you’ve found your next employer?
This is when you keep an eye on everything they do and make sure you build a relationship with them. You should subtly make them aware of you by joining in conversations, answering questions correctly, put out links to relevant information and get everything to lead back to your online professional profile. When your next employer invites you in for an interview they’ll think it just miraculously happened that they found you, don’t ever let on!
Disclaimer Stalking in a stalking sense is not recommended ..This blog is to encourage you to target your next employer, next job in a legal way.
Never harass or become obsessive and never actually physically stalk.
Remember never harass or become obsessive and never physically stalk.
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Julie Bishop Jobhop.co.uk
In:
- Social media