“With the ongoing doom and gloom in the headlines regarding youth unemployment, undergraduates need to establish a professional identity. The first essential step in doing this is by promoting themselves to carve out a unique personal and professional image in the crowded marketplace. However, working out how they are going to do this is a challenge in itself.

The worldwide domination of online platforms has overtaken the power of the traditional paper CV, it is not just about how well you can sell yourself on a piece of paper but how you interact and take interest in your chosen industry.

Employers now look at prospective employees’ Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and will even Google your name, so make sure you hold a level of professionalism throughout your online activities. Remember – a picture of you and your friends dancing and drinking in a club may be funny, but it can be detrimental towards your employment eligibility.

This is not to say don’t enjoy yourself or indeed post photos of social activities, but ensure you continue to promote yourself in a professional manner. The latest way to do this is through the social networking tool, or professional networking site, LinkedIn.

LinkedIn counts executives from all 2011 Fortune 500 companies as members and its corporate hiring solutions are used by 82 of the Fortune 100 companies, as well as more than 2 million companies having LinkedIn company pages. Instead of ‘friending’ or ‘following’ someone you know, or would like to know, you choose to ‘connect’ with them. We’ve all heard the saying, ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ and it’s this axiom with which LinkedIn is firmly based.

We cannot stress the importance of networking enough, not the forged process that is shown all too often in TV programmes such as E!’s ‘The Spin Crowd,’ but the real and successful networking that encourages genuine interest, conversations and connections with someone.

Joining LinkedIn groups and providing discussion topics or engaging with the current subject matter rather than sitting back and observing can make all the difference. This will get people talking – it is good to be talked about and be talked to. Moreover, posting articles and blogs that you find interesting, and sharing your thoughts and opinions is a great way to show your enthusiasm. Employers like to know that you are keeping up to date with current affairs and topics within the industry.

Since the site launched in 2003, LinkedIn has over 150 million members in over 200 countries and territories with professionals signing up to join at a rate faster than two new members per second, establishing it as the world’s largest professional network – so you can see why using LinkedIn can make a real impact on your employment prospects!

According to LinkedIn statistics, as of 31st December 2011, hundreds of thousands of job applications have been submitted using Apply With LinkedIn. So undergraduates, if you brand yourself correctly and network with sincerity, you could niche yourself into employment!”

Article Wrote by Noami from FDM Group

Censoring Your Facebook

Ok, if you’re just coming out of University your facebook is bound to be riddled of pictures of you tumbling around drunk or kicking back in the most absurd places – this isn’t exactly what employers want to see when looking for applicants.

How to remedy this problem!

M Zuckerburg has given the users of his mass social network the option to hide their pages content, i definitely suggest you enable this feature when applying for positions.

find out more about privacy settings here

Change your profile picture to a reasonable, but not too boring picture.

Facebook is a platform in which a person can express themselves, set your profile picture to something which exudes characteristics, this will ultimately look interesting and not too dry ( try avoid night club or drunken shots as these will do you no favours!)

Twitter

The atmosphere of twitter is rather similar to Facebook, i recommend you publicly open your feed and populate it with tweets that express positive opinion’s which will make you seem an interesting and cultured person (Avoid tweeting about The Only Way is Essex)

LinkedIn

Approach LinkedIn with a different attitude, think of it as a social CV as thats what employers will make of it.

Populate your page with all of your achievements, it may work in your favour to gloat a little, but only if you can back it up in an interview.

Connect with industry professionals, if you have mutual connections with an employer, this will certainly work in your favour as it will be noted that you have trustworthy industry ties.

Your profile picture doesn’t have to be anything special here – an image of you looking well groomed from your shoulders up will be just fine, but if you go for a full body shot, i recommend that you’re dressed in smart business attire.