Your online presence
On creating a competitive and meaningful online impression
You can think of your online presence as a more dynamic representation of your CV and cover letter. Your online presence operates to give off a cumulative first impression before you meet anybody in person. Whether you are aware of it or not, your online presence is either working for you or against you.
Recruiters and hiring managers will use various touch points within your online presence as a way to get a quick read on who you are and what's important to you. When a recruiter comes across your name in an application or through a referral or even after head hunting you, they will often open as many of these touch points as they can to build a mental picture of you as a candidate. Some teams may use tools to aid them in this process, but at some stage, in some shape or form, this process will take place.
What recruiters are looking for.
They will be looking for indicators of alignment. That is both technical and cultural alignment. They will look at your professional experiences, the types of companies you've worked at, certifications you've achieved, education, hobby work, and the technology you are familiar with. They will be trying to establish how closely you match the requirements they were given by the hiring manager or leadership team.
By the time a recruiter is reviewing your online presence, they’ll likely already have read your CV and probably even your cover letter. As such, your online presence should add to that body of information, not just repeat it. If you have represented yourself well, your online presence will be particularly important in relation to gauging your cultural alignment.
The specific indicators of cultural alignment that a recruiter will be looking for will change from workplace to workplace, but include things such as the type of posts that you share, how you communicate with other people, whether you have received any recommendations, and what you’re interested in outside of work. In short, anything that helps measure alignment against the brief they have been given and the culture of the company they are hiring for.
They are hoping to get a sense of the person behind the professional. Ultimately, the recruiter is looking to establish whether or not it's likely that you would be a happy and productive addition to the team. The candidate that makes this exercise simple and straightforward for a recruiter is helping that recruiter solve their problem. The result, the recruiter will be incentivised to speak with you and perhaps even add you to the shortlist.
What do you want your online presence to communicate?
The best way to target your messaging in your online presence is to do your research on the companies, people, and positions that you are most interested in. This is where the market mapping exercise pays dividends. When you have done your research and truly understand, in detail, the indicators that a recruiter is looking for, it becomes much easier to stand out in the candidate pool. In contrast, if your online presence isn’t in alignment with the type of companies and positions you are applying to or have interest in, then you are very likely going to experience rejection and early rejection at that.
Your online presence goes well beyond LinkedIn. You may have a website or an online portfolio that helps build a fuller picture of who you are as a professional and person. These platforms offer you another chance to demonstrate your potential alignment. Your website or portfolio is the most personal part of your online presence. It speaks directly to your personal tastes, what you are good at, and what you care about.
This is particularly true for professionals with work that is visual in nature. If you are a web developer, designer, content creator, artist, writer, or any other professional with a clearly identifiable output, your ability to harness that talent for yourself is one of the best indicators of whether or not you can harness that same talent for an employer. This may seem obvious, but we are often much better at doing things for other people than we are at doing things for ourselves.
Some indicators your online presence might be working against you.
A poor online presence can present itself in many ways, but a few of the more common mistakes are as follows:
A LinkedIn that contradicts your CV
Poor-quality profile and/or banner pictures
Broken links to/in your portfolio
Absent or minimal context on your roles, achievements, experiences
Lack of a visual theme or uniformity of messaging
Out-of-date or inaccurate information
Information which confuses or doesn’t point in the direction you intend
Some of this may feel irrelevant to your ability to do a job. You might be asking yourself, ‘what does a visual theme have to do with my ability to get the role’? You have to remember that you can't expect to get the opportunity to do the job if you can’t demonstrate your suitability first. This is the gap between being good at your job and being a good candidate.
Every now and again, just being talented is enough, but most of the time, in your job search as in any other part of life, talent alone wont be enough. While some of these variables don’t go directly towards your technical or cultural suitability, they do influence how efficiently and clearly you are telling your story and therefore how quickly the recruiter can gauge your alignment.
If you don’t make your alignment clear and obvious, the recruiter will pass you over for someone that has. You are competing against other members of the candidate pool. The candidate who makes the most efficient, comprehensive, and aligned demonstration of their ability gets more opportunities. It’s that simple.
What does an effective online presence look like?
The quality of your online presence rests on how well you have thought through your professional narrative and subsequently how well you have mapped your market to find the most appropriate audience for that narrative. But the key thing to remember for your online presence is cohesion. Does your online presence:
Have a cohesive identifiable thread?
Use the same or similar language and imagery throughout?
Detail more than just your qualifications and skill set?
Demonstrate elements of your personality and character?
Efficiently and comprehensively communicate the work you have done?
Highlight things you’ve made, built, or contributed to in some meaningful way?
If you can answer yes to most of these questions, you’ll have an online presence that is telling your story clearly in a way that recruiters understand. As a result, you’ll make more shortlists and progress further through interview processes. If not, your online presence is likely hindering your job search rather than helping.
Your professional narrative is the cornerstone of your job search system. Your online presence is the capstone. It holds the entire system together and efficiently communicates your value. Your online presence is the gauge for how well your job search system is calibrated. If you want to know your value and own your story, you have to audit your online presence to understand the first impression you are giving, intentional or not.
If you want to build an intentional online presence that helps you compete and stands out to recruiters, book a free discovery call at www.margins.consulting.
