Employees are finding their way to new jobs that better align with their long-term career goals and needs — and social media is helping them do it.
Elizabeth Edouard, who works at research tech platform Lucid as a product marketing manager, was no different. After receiving her Master's at Hult International Business School, Edouard wanted to make a career pivot from advertising and media to product marketing but quickly realized she would need help.
“This job search was quite bumpy because I was pivoting into a competitive field,” Edouard says. “Although I had just gotten my masters and had four to five years of experience, it was also hard knowing that I was still being recruited for more junior roles.”
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Edouard ended up enlisting the help of professional training and coaching company Wonsulting, which pushed Edouard to not only revise her resume and improve
“Social media for us was everything because we came from backgrounds where we didn't have anyone in our families that we could ask advice from,” says Jerry Lee, co-founder and chief operating officer of Wonsulting. “LinkedIn enabled us to have the entire world as our community with two clicks and a message.”
Social media platforms like LinkedIn empower talent of all backgrounds to grow their network and engage with the professional field of their choice, according to Lee. It democratizes the job hunt, which can often feel like a matter of luck and exclusive connections.
For Eduoard, LinkedIn was the difference between landing her dream job and feeling stuck. EBN spoke with Edouard to learn more about how LinkedIn and social media rules of engagement played a vital role in her job search.
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What were the initial challenges when looking for your next job?
I was in a contract role after the pandemic hit, and I chose not to continue that contract — it just wasn’t meant to be my end role and I saw no potential growth in it. It took me four to five months to get my new role and I was unemployed for three months.
It's hard to even look back on those months because some of the times I was trying to get interviews, I wasn't even fully passionate about it because it was getting to a point where I just needed to book a job. And I was applying at a point in the pandemic when jobs were finicky — it's completely different now.
How did LinkedIn impact the job hunt?
So when I was seeking help for resume revisions, I found Wonsulting's LinkedIn lives and learned about the tools that would make my LinkedIn more attractive. Because if you want people to seek you out for roles, you have to be engaged with your network and the platform. I started making a lot more posts and being more strategic about who I connected with, getting guidance from those in my network while I was on the hunt.
LinkedIn is like every social media platform. It utilizes SEO and it’s data-driven. I had words like product marketing, growth, marketing, marketing analysts, marketing strategy, and digital marketing on my page, so my profile would come up when someone was looking for that. I made sure to say that I was open to roles and tagged people within my posts. And I would engage on posts that tagged me by commenting or liking it. If a friend of mine was looking for a job, I make sure to comment on it so that my network can see them. I would go into groups on LinkedIn, Facebook and even Slack to ask questions and read what’s going on. And it works — my last post had 1,700 post views. I had even more views on other posts and when I first saw that I knew this wasn’t a joke.
Why is LinkedIn so crucial to not only the job hunt but your career?
Funny enough, the job I have now reached out to me through LinkedIn. I was searching and searching, and then this role came to me. I feel very lucky because it is the perfect transition from what I was working in. So now, I'm in the role that I want to be in, my experience is very unique for this position in this company and I get to leverage it every day.
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People truly undervalue what LinkedIn can do. Even now that I have a job, I still join any lives that look interesting and connect with people. You do not have to network for a job — you can network to build a rapport and relationships that could set you up for when you are ready to change roles again. I can take the steps now to be in the places that I want to be.
What is your advice for anyone looking to utilize LinkedIn in their job search?
LinkedIn can feel overwhelming, but instead of backing away, lean into it. You don’t have to do anything crazy. You can just post things you like, write out two sentences and tag one person or put hashtags in it. If you like someone, follow them and engage in their content. And that will make such a big difference because your posts are going to start populating for a lot more people and people will notice your name.
I think a lot of the times in life, we want the big goal and we think we have to take so many big steps to get there. But the truth is, if you do one little thing, all those little things will finally amount to the bigger goal. So, every day, you can make those little engagements and try to connect with someone. If they don’t reply, it’s no big deal and you try someone else. Nobody has anything against you, people just have busy lives.
All these little things amount to you being in front of the right person at the right time, who will end up advocating for you to get the job.
