Creative Connecting: Recruiting and Job Hunting on Social Media

Need to find top talent, or looking for a new opportunity for yourself? Duvall O’Steen and Jen Cullen Williams outline best practices for doing so on social media.

Duvall O’Steen, left, and Jen Cullen Williams are independent communications strategists and senior consultants for the Luxury Brand Group. They can be reached at DuvallOsteenNYC@gmail.com or Jen@JenCullenWilliams.com.

In a digital world where more and more people are working from home, both recruiting and job searching has vastly expanded.

Companies can now hire top talent from anywhere in the country, potentially without relocation costs, while talented professionals have access to a broader range of career opportunities.

The global connections made possible by social media are both a blessing and a bane, on both sides of the equation.

Professionals looking to accelerate their careers can discover a wealth of opportunities that can be daunting and overwhelming if not streamlined and specific.

Companies looking to recruit qualified talent can widen their nets but may encounter roadblocks without specificity and strategic communications.

To capitalize on the advantages of this new digital world and mitigate the conundrums, we’ve talked to leading recruiters and communications experts about how jewelry professionals and businesses can best use social media to attract top talent and/or great opportunities.

For Job Seekers
All the professionals we talked to agree that LinkedIn is, obviously, the best social media tool for professionals to use for connecting with great job opportunities or talent scouts and recruiters.

Specificity of language in your LinkedIn profile is key.

John-Stuart Fauquet, vice president of Bonnell-Ryan Executive Search, advises making your LinkedIn profile as detailed as your resume.

“Take your resume and copy it word for word into your LinkedIn page. That allows recruiters and HR executives to find you in specific keyword searches when they are looking for particular skills.”

Ginny Miller, director-retail practice at iRiS Recruiting Solutions, echoed the need for keywords.

“Use keywords on your resume and in your profile on sites like LinkedIn or Indeed, so that your resume/profile will pop higher on a search. Also, the more you use each keyword on your profile, the higher up your resume will appear. Using multiple titles for what you do can also help; for example, buyer, merchant, purchasing.”

Simply having a presence on LinkedIn, however, is not enough. Networking is still key.

Fauquet said, “The biggest piece of advice is networking! The best way to get a job is to put yourself out there and meet with people who are connected in your industry and find a time to connect with them.

“This extends to social media. Make a list of people you know who hold high-ranking positions at companies that interest you. Reach out and connect with them via social media. Once you put

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yourself out there and let people know you’re looking for a job, you’ll be amazed at the opportunities that open up.”

“While social media can be lighthearted, it is also important to portray yourself as a respectable professional. Use your social media profile to put your best foot forward.” — Peter Harts, GIA

According to Miller, LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups and subgroups.

She advised joining groups with the largest number of members, e.g., Buyers, Retail Industry Professionals, Luxury Fashion & Lifestyle Executives, Nonprofit Network, Marketing Communication and LuxuryRecruit.

Once in, you can communicate with any member inside these groups and post or blog to the group to get yourself noticed.

GIA’s Manager of Career Services Peter Harts warns that all social media outlets can affect a job search.

“While social media can be lighthearted, it is also important to portray yourself as a respectable professional. If your profile is public, anyone has access to your photos and information, so it’s important to use your social media profile to put your best foot forward.”

He also echoed the need for digital networking.

“It is worth investing time in networking, as its potential effects are significant and long lasting. Find companies and professional groups that interest you and ask to follow or join their communities,” he said.

“By participating in the right conversations, being active in LinkedIn groups and using hashtags, you will gain more visibility to other users. You should also share relevant content that shows off your professional and educational experience for the role you want.”

Kristy Hurt, founder of Kristy Hurt Consulting, believes so strongly in the power of networking, she started her own networking community, the co-lab.

“For professionals in the fashion, jewelry, beauty and luxury industry, there is no better place to network than in the co-lab, a professional networking community I founded in 2020 to connect the 20+ years of professional colleagues I have engaged with over my career.

“We have internal job listings and lots of opportunities to network with warm connections. Find us at jointhecolab.com or on social media @jointhecolab on all the channels.”

Career-driven websites like Career Contessa and Ladies Get Paid can provide valuable advice for professional development, salary negotiations and more. Follow these resources on social media to learn more about what is happening in the market.

For Employers
For companies looking to attract top talent, social media is an effective tool.

According to Hurt, all social media channels can be helpful.

“It’s so important to meet your customers where they are, and that includes social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and yes, even TikTok. Post news articles, topics and trends, and then jobs.

“It’s a great way to seek warm leads and referrals. If you build trust with your stakeholders, they will send you names. People love to be useful and by making it easy for them to help you, they will do it.”

“If you put your values front and center on your social media pages, people will see that when they’re looking for a job.” — John-Stuart Fauquet, Bonnell-Ryan Executive Search

Fauquet suggests keeping job postings up-to-date and accurate to avoid frustrating or deterring high-level talent.

“Use all the social channels you have to direct applicants to one centralized place. Also, social media can help convey the culture of your organization,” he said.

“If you put your values front and center on your social media pages, people will see that when they’re looking for a job.”

Miller concurred that having readily available information about the company helps: “You can post blogs that can be found easily on a Google search engine that are about the company and the culture and also feature current openings.”

She also recommends getting creative by creating accounts for job postings on platforms that cater to the specific job you are looking to fill. For example, if you are trying to attract a creative talent, check out Creatively.

Also, she said: “Join groups and associations like the Women’s Jewelry Association that are specific to your industry and that would help attract membership talent for the job you are looking to fill.

University alumni groups are another option to consider, like FIT as an example. They might have a roster that is particularly appealing for jewelry job candidates.”

We also asked the pros if there are any best times or specific ways to post job opportunities. Here’s what they said.

Kristy Hurt:
“For Instagram, I find that it’s better to post on Stories than in the feed and be sure to allow followers to direct message (DM) or respond to the stories. More followers will engage on a story and respond by sending a DM to ask for more information. The feed is too public, so they may not want to comment, or it may be ‘too much work’ to send a DM from scratch.”

Peter Harts:
“Many employers in the gem and jewelry industry have found participating in the GIA Jewelry Career Fair and working with GIA career services to be a great way to establish a pipeline of candidates, from entry-level to skilled professionals.”

Ginny Miller:
“Post [jobs] early in the morning during the week, so you are at the top of the candidate’s priority list for the day. Also, posting on a Saturday or Sunday morning gets good results. The other option is to put it on a rotation, so that it is posted every few days at a different time.”

For other places to post job listings, we discovered these tips.

According to Harts, “the GIA Gem and Jewelry Career Center is the premier online job board/portal exclusively for the jewelry industry. It is free for job seekers and employers, offering powerful features to speed up the search for qualified candidates and opportunities, in one easy to navigate location.”

“Indeed is also a good place to post; however, it can be costly,” said Miller.

“Ladders will pick up your posting as long as the salary is over $100K and is posted on the ad. Monster, and Career Builder are good places to post for mid-level to lower-level jobs; however, I don’t recommend them to attract higher-level top talent or passive candidates.”

Finally, for companies looking to partner with a recruiting agency, Hurt suggests finding a partner who will really get to know your company culture.

“It’s important to find a recruiting agency partner who knows your business, understands what you are looking for, and is on the same page as the client when it comes to compensation and level of talent.”

There also are resources for companies searching for specific roles outside of the jewelry industry that can be great for sourcing new experienced talent such as The Mom Project, Exec Thread or Glassdoor, and freelance talent marketplaces like Upwork and FreeUp.