Get ‘New Year job search ready’ over Christmas…

Over Christmas and into the New Year, many of you will be thinking about setting New Year’s resolutions and re-evaluating your goals.

This often leads to lots of people dusting off their CV’s and contemplating a job change.

We have lots of tips on our blog for writing your CV and what employers are looking for – we’ve added lots of links to some great articles further down this post.

But there are some other factors you need to consider before starting your job search. And they are activities you can easily do over Christmas.

In the world today, it is possible to find out a lot about a person without actually meeting them. If you apply for a new job, your prospective employers, and for that matter your recruiter, will no doubt tap your name into Google/Facebook/LinkedIn etc before they arrange a meeting with you.

They want to find out about you; what type of person you are, what you like to do. If it’s LinkedIn, a bit more about your work history. People are looking to see if they might have a connection with you, something in common and if you would fit into their business.

You need to as ready as you can be for this to happen.

If you are planning to start your job search in the New Year, spend some time researching yourself over Christmas. Now is the time to spruce up your online profile.

Facebook:

1.79 billion of us are on Facebook and 1.18 billion of us log in daily. Facebook was conceived in 2004, so if you were an early adopter, you will most likely have an awful lot of posts, photos and videos on there.

Would you be happy for a prospective employer to see all of it? You might have your account well locked down but if they have friends in common with you it is still possible that will have had exposure to some of your content.

We’re all entitled to a private life but it is good practice to have a look over all your whole Facebook profile and delete or hide anything that isn’t showing you in the best light.

This could include things you have reviewed or places you have checked into.

Twitter:

The same goes for Twitter as for Facebook. Go through your profile; what you’ve tweeted, retweeted, liked, who you follow and who follows you.

Is there anything within your profile that you wouldn’t want a prospective employer to see? If there is, remove it now.

LinkedIn:

Checking through your LinkedIn profile is less of a cleansing process and more of a reputation building process. Whilst everyone is having extra downtime for Christmas, ask your colleagues past and present to write a testimonial for you. Having evidence from other people that you are good at your job goes a long way.

This is also a great time to get your profile updated with your full work history and qualifications. It will also help you to write your CV if you get LinkedIn updated first.

Google:

Finally, Google yourself. You won’t always be able to delete anything you find on there but it is always good to know what is on there.

Once you have cleansed your online profile, then you are ready to get your CV finished and sent out.

And if you are dusting off your CV, send us a copy and we’ll if we can help you with your job search; [email protected]