| Tags | employability-sprint |
Your online presence includes any personally identifying content and information on the internet. This includes any profiles or posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, personal websites, blogs, online dating apps, and more.
Google yourself and see what results would turn up if a potential employer did the same.
Your online presence can positively or negatively impact your work-search process. By intentionally managing your online presence, you can:
By now you understand that it is important to have a professional online presence. Below are some guidelines and tips on how you can build your online presence in order to support your job search and professional career.
LinkedIn is without a doubt THE biggest and most active professionally focused network in the world. It’s an invaluable tool for finding job opportunities and for being found and approached by recruiters and employers.
Be careful of the filters on LinkedIn’s job search page. Not all jobs that are posted are correctly tagged, so you might filter out jobs that are actually a good fit. You can always include the “tag” in your search bar. E.g. include an “entry-level” tag by searching for “data scientist entry-level Johannesburg”.
Make sure you include remote jobs in your search and consider adding other locations if relocation is an option for you.
Google’s job-listing platform is also pretty handy, as it pulls jobs from many other aggregators. Search normal Google for something like “UX Designer Jobs Johannesburg” and it’ll bring up the listings with a bunch of useful filters.
The below slideshow and youtube playlist will take you through the basics of setting up and populating your Linkedin profile.
Some people believe that the “who you know” aspect is sometimes just as powerful as “what you know”.
DThompsonDev on YouTube might be one of these people. He has a playlist called “Get a job using LinkedIn”. It has tons of actionable advice and detailed dos and don’ts for how to land a Developer Job by networking on LinkedIn.
Check out the first video in the playlist, and then decide how deep you’d like to dive down this rabbit hole. We’d certainly recommend spending a little time experimenting with this approach.
Having a referral can help separate you from other job candidates and may increase your chances of getting an interview or job offer. This is a great article to guide you on how to ask for referrals.
Register and upload your CV on leading job portals in your country - most of them are free. Do some research on your local sites, and choose those that work best for your career.
South Africa: Offerzen, Pnet, Career Junction, Careers 24, Glassdoor
Nigeria: Jobberman
Kenya, Uganda: Summit Recruitment & Search Africa, Brightermonday, Corporate Staffing, Jobwebkenya
International: ZipRecruiter
Online freelance websites can also be extremely useful in building your reputation, experience, and profile in addition to making some extra money. These can even turn into a full-time career.
Have a look at and sign-up to some of the options below; click on any of the links to see the short write-ups from hostinger.
A personal blog or website is a big commitment, so it’s really only worth doing if you want to develop your professional brand further, or are thinking about setting up your own business. Although it takes more upkeep than your social media profiles, a blog, website, or even an online resume or portfolio, can help you get noticed.
If a personal website or blog relates to your career interests, it will be a great place to highlight your skills and an ideal way to feature your credentials. Read how to build your resume website.
Be sure to audit your online presence for anything inappropriate that might cost you a great job. Employers don’t like finding videos of you getting drunk in your student days. A fun way to do this is to “hire” a friend to be a detective for an hour or two to see if they can dig up some dirt on you online. You can do the same for them, and the challenge is to see who can come up with the most damaging material.