by By: Avery Brickman
It’s time to create a profile that’s professional yet approachable to show employers who you really are!
The age of social media has created an environment where everyone has the opportunity to market and brand themselves. Nothing online is ever private, so what should we post if we want to get hired?
Personal Posts Meet Professional Polishing
Make your everyday posts look professional with minor updates that will consistently upgrade your content. Think about your resume–what did you tell employers you could do? Now show them!
By making minor edits to your everyday posts that highlight your skills you can consistently upgrade your content. Did you say you were organized? Fluent in another language? Able to pogo stick? All of these traits and many more can easily be displayed on your profile in a variety of ways–even if you lied!
Now think about the features of Instagram: stories, highlights, reels, carousels, notes, etc. Are your highlights organized? Have you captioned a post in another language? Have you shared a video of you on a pogo stick?
Employers want to see that the person they are interested in hiring is authentic. This doesn’t mean that every time you post you have to be highlighting a skill, but keeping in mind what you’ve claimed about yourself while deciding how to showcase yourself is a key component to a professional profile.
What Employers Like (and Dislike) to See
Would you walk into an interview holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a bong in the other? Probably not. But that photo on your Instagram from two years ago has likely already been seen by your interviewer and you might as well have walked in like that.
When an employer is scrolling through your profile they should be able to see your personal development through the themes of the content you post. Posting occasional social experiences is normal, but consistently highlighting partying or risky behavior can indicate negative habits that may not align with a company’s values.
Maintaining a professional profile means thinking twice before you post, like, comment, or share content. Employers want to see you interact with and share content that is relevant to your desired position in a consistent manner that shows growth and engagement.
How to Interact
As the saying goes, you are who you surround yourself with.
Whether or not you agree, the people you choose to interact with can influence you–and on social media, that influence is visible to everyone.
Publicly interacting with or sharing offensive, divisive, misleading, or discriminatory content can quickly create a negative impression with an employer. This extends from posting the content yourself, to liking it on another profile, or engaging with it in comment sections. All of those forums are public and easily found with a single search.
This includes positive interactions! Employers want to see you interact with content that aligns with their company’s values. This could mean following accounts related to your target industry/company, or organizations that your desired company partners with or supports. Demonstrating that you actively interact with content that reflects the company’s priorities is as simple as clicking ‘follow’.
Making an effort to thoughtfully interact with content is another simple step you can take to tidy up your profile and ensure that employers are seeing the best version of you.
Next Steps
Start by reviewing your five most recent posts and use the following checklist as a guide to productively posting:
- Is this post offensive or discriminatory?
- Could it be misleading or my intentions misconstrued?
- Does it showcase a positive skill or characteristic?
- Would I want ___ to see this? Think about someone you admire and how they would react to your post.
- Does this feel authentic? Take a step back and reflect on whether your post reflects the real you.
Once you get the hang of posting thoughtfully, take it a step further! Create a story highlight where you can share your career achievements or share a post that demonstrates an area of personal growth.
Social media is a tool–every post is an opportunity to shape your image and further your goals while staying true to yourself.
Hi Avery, I really enjoyed reading your blog post! I have never thought about having my Instagram mirror my professional image. As you said, everything online is not private, and I completely agree with that! I think it is important that young professionals use their personal platforms to both balance personal life and work.
Hey Avery, I really like the direction that you went with this assignment because the topic is so important. It is really important to reinforce the fact that what you put out on the internet will be seen. Like Olivia said above, I never viewed Instagram as a professional app so this was really eye opening.