by Jatzari Abonce, SMACC Analyst
Do you have an interview on your schedule? Are you concerned about making a good impression? Don’t know how to prepare? These are all common concerns among people who are job searching and are trying to ace their interviews and secure a position. You have probably already been given advice to make sure that you have enough time to prepare for an interview and to maintain a professional presence, but you may have not realized that there are several social media tools that can help you prepare for a job search and interview.
Here are some tips and tools to help you prepare for your next interview and ensure that you are a top candidate.
Investigate
An important part of preparing for the interview is to research the companies you want to work for and learn about what they do. When applying for the position, make sure that you are reviewing the job description and what that position entails. Using sites like LinkedIn when applying can be a great way to research the company, look at the job description, and investigate what requirements they are looking for in applicants. There may be
Here’s how you can narrow your search on LinkedIn:
- Keyword research: Begin by putting in keywords for the kind of position you are looking for. For example, if you are interested in a public relations position, you would put in the keyword such as “public relations” or if you want something specific within public relations you can also narrow it even more and put for example, “public relations assistant”.
- Location: Another key element in ensuring you are searching for jobs best suitable for you, is indicating the area where you might want to work. For example, you can put your hometown and LinkedIn then have a feature where you can narrow or expand that search by indicating how close or far away of a mile radius you’d like for LinkedIn to search and show job opportunities.
- Other features: After narrowing down those two subjects, you should also take advantage of the other features LinkedIn offers. Such as, experience level, job type (full-time, internship, etc.). Doing so will help your search for jobs to be more precise so that positions that best fit your interests, show up. Researching the company can help you prepare for questions about that company. You might even stumble upon things that you might have questions about, which are great to bring up during the interview.
What are the skills they are looking for?
Evaluate what skills the job is looking for and what skills you have that match their search in applicants. Be able to describe how your skills and experience are a great asset to the company. If you don’t have some of the experience they are looking for, how can the experiences that you do have help you achieve what they are looking for? Explain how this position in the company can guide you in learning those skills.
What is their social media strategy?
When researching the company, look at what kind of tools they use. Does this company use specific programs that are part of the job’s daily tasks? Make sure that you have an idea of what these programs do. Don’t be afraid to play around with these programs so that you have a better understanding of what they are and how the company uses these tools to remain competitive.
You can also use social media analytics tools to help further your research on the company. Using tools like Sociograph, a site that displays a Facebook page’s community engagement or Twitonomy, a Twitter analytics tool that gives insights into Twitter accounts and their engagement.
Here are some tips to help you navigate the Twitonomy tool:
- Go to twitonomy.com and sign in with your Twitter account.
- Once you have logged in, go to the top right hand corner and in the search bar available, insert the desired account (“@user”) you are looking into. For example, if you are looking for analytics on the Country Time Lemonade Twitter account you will search, “@countrytime”
- After the first search of accounts is done, on the right hand side of the screen, select the account you were searching for, and another tab will appear. It will then give you the option below the account to “View Profile Analytics”. Click that button and it will begin analyzing the account.
- Once the analysis is done, you will see on your screen all the analytics of that page. These analytics will be broken down into sections such as: Tweets per day, hashtags most used, tweets most retweeted, etc.
- With these analytics you can then begin to do your own analysis of how well this company has been using their social media accounts to interact with their audience.
You might even come up with some suggestions on what the company can change or keep doing to remain successful. This demonstrates to the interviewers that you have taken your time to look at what they are all about and you are showing skills of problem-solving right off the bat.
Be Reflexive
As you dive into the company’s social media accounts, make sure that you are analyzing your accounts as well. Look at your own social media production and be able to have evidence of your past performance as a social media manager. Exploring your page will allow you to see what kind of skills you have to offer for the position. Don’t be shy. Talk about your accomplishments. What are your leadership qualities? How have you handled a crisis? Have a timeframe that shows how things have grown during the time that you’ve held these positions. How has the engagement with what you have created grown? What have you learned from these experiences? What are the skills that you didn’t have before that you gained from managing social media?
You can demonstrate your successes by using Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics to show how your posting strategy has received different levels of engagement and reached different audiences over time. You should be able to show how you have grown and adapted.
You’d be surprised that as you reflect, you discover your strengths and weaknesses. And as you realize what those weaknesses are, be prepared to explain how those weak moments have been an opportunity for growth. Most importantly, present what unique capabilities you have that set you apart from other applicants.