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You’ve got your resume polished, your cover letter perfected, and finally made it through the endless job application process. Now what? You’ve landed an interview, and now you have to prepare to show that you are the best candidate for the job. Before your new employer can hire you, you need to prove to them that you’re a good match. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to do that besides having a conversation. You can prove that you’re worthy of this position with some preparation.
Establishing an active online presence is one of the easiest ways to create a solid appeal to employers outside of the interview process. A professional online presence is composed of your websites and any other online channels you use to communicate with people and showcase your talents. Think of it as your virtual resume. It’s one of the first things an employer sees about you, so it’s super important to make a good impression. Here are some tips for building an online presence to land that dream job.
Adding Visual Elements to Your Online Presence
To first create a space for your professional image, you can change your social media accounts into ones that are more work-centric or open up brand new accounts to get you hired. Of course, on these accounts, you’ll always want to use appropriate language and stick to proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation to show that you are the best candidate through your posts and photos.
If you want to stand out in a crowd, an effective way to do so is by adding visual elements to your online presence. Visual content is incredibly engaging, and it’s easier than ever to create interesting visual content.
There are several ways to add visual elements to your online presence. Firstly, you can create visual content highlighting your skills, experiences, and education while using images and videos to tell your story. You can also create visual content that helps you create a brand. Finally, you can spice up your content and have some variety in the visual stimulation is to showcasing photos of your work workspace, creating videos explaining your skills and how you carry them out or using infographics that demonstrate your work.
Create a Portfolio
A great way to show off your skills is by creating a portfolio. A portfolio is a collection of your work, whether creative work, essays, research papers, or blog posts. You can show off your writing portfolio by posting your articles on Medium. You can also post your portfolio on LinkedIn, Google+, and GitHub.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can create an entire website to host your portfolio that you can use to highlight your work and professional accomplishments and skills. Having a portfolio that is a quick click away for an interviewer or recruiter to look at will impress them and show them how dedicated you are to your job. In addition, an appealing design will show them that you might have skills outside of what the job requires as it shows that you have some experience with UX design, coding, HTML, and CSS. But if you are not the most tech savvy, you can always outsource your website building to a website design company.
A great way to start building your portfolio is by posting creative work you’ve done in the past. For example, if you’re a designer, you can also post visuals that you’ve created in the past. Additionally, if you’ve participated in projects where you think you put in a lot of work and effort and are impressive, you can upload them to your portfolio. Unfortunately, you can’t always post projects you’ve partaken in online in some cases or for confidentiality reasons. Some nice alternatives to posting projects would be having an “About Me” section on your portfolio or writing reflection type blog posts where you can discuss the types of work you’ve been in charge of before, how you think you were able to make it a success, and what you gained from the experience.
Demonstrate your expertise
Another great way to showcase your skills is by demonstrating your expertise. You can have a section on your portfolio that links to your other professional accounts for interviewers to look over. You can post content that others who work in the same field as you or are newer to the vocation can engage with on these platforms. You can help individuals get started by hosting “Q and A” sessions on your media where you answer their questions and concerns about the type of job you have or what it’s like working in that industry. You can also offer up ways to prepare for projects or significant assignments at work and give them some insight on how you stay productive and what “A Day in the Life” might look like for you.
Conclusion
Your online presence is one of your future employer’s first impressions of you, so it’s super important to make a good impression. An online presence is your website and any other online channels you use to communicate with people and showcase your talents. Think of it as your virtual resume. It’s one of the first things an employer sees about you, so it’s super important to make a good impression.
By following these tips for building an online presence, you can show off your talents and stand out from the competition. Now all you have to do is land that dream job!