There is a belief that Pinterest is only a place to pin photos, getting inspired with recipes, latest fashion and home décor. However, nowadays, Pinterest has turned into full-blown social phenomena and has become a source of power for branding.
With today’s unstable economy and many people being either underemployed, out of work or seeking for a change of job, Pinterest is effectively being used as a job hunt tool. It has become an immense resource for job seekers.
They can share their resume, research a company, and get in contact with a recruiter as well as much more. Explore the many ways to optimize your job search on Pinterest.
Pinterest Tips to Boost Your Job Hunting Efforts:
1. Generate an alluring resume:
It is essential to create a resume that will implore to be pinned. Resumes that are info-graphic can go viral.
2. Pinning your resume:
Search ‘my resume’ on Pinterest and you will come across thousands of results. Search with specific terms like writer resume, graphic design resume or business resume and you will get more results.
3. Types of resumes:
Some resumes that you will discover will be standard ones with basic information and layout, whereas others will be stylized with creative layouts and appealing graphics. The important goal of pinning your resume to Pinterest is to let it go viral throughout the site. Thus your resume has to be eye-catching, convincing and error-free.
4. Make a resume Pinboard:
You can create a complete board that embodies the distinct sections of your resume with different pins, other than pinning your entire resume as one pin. You can pin pictures of schools you have attended, companies you had worked for, volunteered places and even your hobbies. Use the given text box with each pin to illustrate the images, how they link to your career and its importance.
5. Optimize its visual powers:
As Pinterest is a visual channel, it can offer a multi-dimensional representation of your resume which is two dimensional. Thus making it an absolute eye-catching resume to be viewed.
6. Be illustrative:
You need to keep in mind how your resume shows up in the result. When posting your resume you have to make sure it turns up well in results. Thus instead of captioning ‘my resume’, you can try to be more specific by using terms such as, ‘graphic design resume’.
7. Display your talent with a portfolio:
If you are from a creative field, Pinterest can be your ideal platform to showcase your work. Give link texts to relevant portfolios, describing your role in producing each of your work.
8. Be contemplative about your text:
Pinterest users often just keep the earlier texts on a repin. However, if you wish to stand out and be noticed, you must change it. It must reflect your thought process and personality as well as your skills. In case you are repinning a picture, add your views and facts about the picture and what you think about it.
9. Utilize Pinterest to own your name:
Pinterest makes available ‘do follow’ links. This has made it a large forum to dominate the results of the search engine for your name. Make sure you have used your real full name in your profile as well as on pins or any related boards.
10. Share appropriate career links:
You can add your LinkedIn or Facebook profile, blog or website if it is professional. It is a great way to allow the recruiters and potential employers to find what other things you have got to offer.
11. Become a keen commenter:
When you come across something that interests you on company boards, drop a significant and useful comment and see where it takes you. Make sure you make practical and sensible comments; you can even share your views and opinions or ideas in the comment.
12. Follow the career center of your college:
For recent grads or current students, they can draw on the resources of their college’s career center. While you are on Pinterest, it is ideal to follow them for the opportunities that they are sharing on the site.
13. Refer to Pinterest for inspiration:
While you are on Pinterest, find out inspiring ideas for personal branding and resume. You can use Pinterest for its original purpose which is getting personal stimulation. Job searching may turn stressful and leave you disappointed. Look for inspiring quotes or surf through board images to lighten up your mood.
14. Use keywords:
Make sure that you use keywords and pay attention when creating text for each pin, as Pinterest links show up pretty well on search engine results. Thus you should make sure you make the correct use of keywords.
15. Check link before repinning:
Checking links is a crucial part of maintaining a professional account on Pinterest. You need to ensure that all the things that you are repinning are leading to beneficial content and not malicious or spam sites.
16. Set up your brand:
Institute your brand on Pinterest. Do it with the help of a profile photo that is consistent, having unique about, pins and boards that will promote your complete brand.
17. Demonstrate your interest with a reading list:
You can curate a reading list. It must show your interest and knowledge of the industry that you are working in.
18. Showcase your degrees and certifications:
You can share links with institutions and organizations that collect all of them in a distinctive pinboard.
19. Discover your interview outfit:
With the help of Pinterest discover how you can look the role you wish to play. Look for boards that contain ideas and inspiration on interview outfits, so that you can dress the part and impress your interviewers.
20. Keep things on Pinterest professional:
Whatever you pin will reflect your professional image. Thus you must be vigilant of what you pin to make sure you keep things work-appropriate. You must use texts and images that suit the work environment.
21. Research different careers:
While you are on Pinterest, you can search for various available careers. Perhaps you are not sure about what you are doing currently. So you can search for a suitable career on Pinterest that you can pursue.
22. Avoid making it all about you:
Apart from sharing your accomplishments, resume, and portfolio, you must also display your interests and personality. You can do this by pinning designs or pictures that mean something to you, repin pictures from your friends or share recipes that you would like to test.
23. Share your Pinterest page:
Pinterest is not just about potential employers to find you, but it can also help to showcase a distinct dimension of your work. Share your Pinterest link on your resume, social networking account and more as a resource to explore your work from another dimension. Make sure that your board is pertinent and professional as it can be viewed by anyone at any time.
24. Before application, research a company’s culture:
Along with Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest is another medium through which you can research a company’s culture. You can find many companies on Pinterest and thus it is a great place to know what they are all about. You can find out what interests them and then to reflect the same, tailor your resume and interview.
25. Highlight your achievements:
Have board dedicated to your achievements and share here all presentations, exclusive achievements, and all your recognitions as well as appreciation awards. Utilize this board to generate your value.
26. Follow career experts:
If you are on Pinterest for job search advice, some sites use pinboards to display their inspiring ideas and pieces that relate to work that can keep people happy.
Brazen Careerist and CareerBliss and many more are sites that can help you with resources to find a job. The 405 Club provides career advice for the unemployed whereas there is Penn State which is a college career office that supplies tips to the newbies in the workforce.
27. Launch a user-generated pinboard:
With the help of a user-generated pinboard, you will be able to provide social proof from followers, colleagues and many more.
28. Hunt job openings:
Pinterest is recognized by some companies as a great place to locate job candidates and so they have started to share job openings of their company on the site. Utilize the search function to spot what is out there for you.
29. Display your interest:
When you find a company that interests you, do not just observe the company’s activities. Show your interest in the company with the help of repinning their content.
30. Be vigilant of controversial subjects:
Politics and religion can be considered as subject matters that can be potentially controversial. Treat such topics delicately or avoid completely the matters which you find can turn disruptive on Pinterest.
31. Display your connections:
If you have connections with professional organizations or charities, create a pinboard dedicated to highlighting them. Discuss your contributions and talk about your volunteer positions.
32. Be cautious not to get extremely involved:
Pinterest is, without doubt, a great tool for the job search; however never forget to stay productive. Be cautious that you do not get sucked in and forget about other efficient job search tasks.
33. Launch board for companies that interest you:
You can start a board for the companies that you would prefer to work for. By adding prospective employers to your shortlist, it can attract their attention. It will display your seriousness about working for their company and let them view the other companies that are perhaps considering you for work.
34. Connect with prospective coworkers and experts:
Using Pinterest you can connect with professionals from the field you are interested in and who can be useful for your networking efforts in your job search process.
Conclusion:
Keep in mind that your latest pins will always be displayed on top, so remember to repin and share regularly to maintain fresh content that will make the potential employers keep coming back on your Pinterest page. Utilizing these above tips will boost your job searching efforts on Pinterest.
