Social Media Marketing Strategies for Career Advancement: An Analysis of Linkedin

INTRODUCTIONSocial media disrupts the traditional recruitment process. For those who want to be hired, the traditional job search of reviewing the want ads in the newspaper or getting interviewed on campus in your final year of school has been disrupted through companies like LinkedIn, who provide user generated content which creates a customer relationship management (CRM) tool for users on both sides of the hiring process, eliminating the middleman in many instances. Now the recruitment process is via online databases and the old way is via newspapers.The audience for this article is intended for students who may not already use social media for career growth and for educators who want to know more about how this trend is changing the hiring practice. It is also for those who want to improve their skills of using social media to help them brand their name and experience. The use of social media goes far beyond the hiring process, but that is the focus here. And that focus should be for companies who are looking to hire college graduates.This research study looks at how social media helps students with their future job prospects. This exploratory study of how students have searched for jobs traditionally vs how they can search using social media tools is an example of a disruption that is changing how the traditional college graduate finds work that is professionally satisfying and challenging, and provides career advancement.In the past, students set up interviews and applied for jobs that they saw advertised in job boards, career centers, and newspaper classified sections of the newspaper. Today's job seekers and recruiters alike are sophisticated as to who they seek as candidates and who is interviewed. In some circumstances, social media helps brand the candidate and the company, connecting the job candidates with positions, thus cutting out the middleman.In other instances, the job recruiter is critical in the process of finding the right candidate for the position. Firms are willing to pay a fee to recruit the candidate who seems best for the position. Furthermore, how employers seek candidates has caused disruption of traditional recruitment practices. Successful firms are those who remain efficient and data driven. This paper explores 1) How does social media disrupt traditional recruitment practices? and 2) How do employees find jobs to advance their careers? LITERATURE REVIEWSocial media is becoming more important and is changing the corporation. On a global level, destination management organizations found empirical evidence of emerging social media importance, including findings of conflicts between corporate culture and social media culture (Munar, 2012). The Harvard Business Review examined disruption with evidence of social media as a new low cost tool for personal branding, where one needs to be authentic and consistent across all platforms (Dutta, 2010). The concept of disruption is defined as interrupting the normal course of action or breaking things apart. Disruption by interrupting, and then blending multiple business functions, i.e., using social media for both recruitment and training strategies are considered efficient in The Social Media Manifesto (Hallam, 2013). From an employer's perspective, social media and social networks are being used to find employees. The literature has covered this topic from a professional recruiter's point of view. (Madia, 2011; Safko, 2012). Starting small, gauging the responses and including evolving social networks is recommended by experts who want to recruit on social media. Having a plan, resources, content strategy and social media policies make for good practice as a recruiter who is competitive and strategic in their business and will lead in the direction of success (Madia, 2011). From an employee perspective, the typical student strategy (Levinson, 2011, Herbold & Doumak, 2013; Waldman, 2013; Kim, 2015) has been discussed in the literature from a job seeker's viewpoint. …