Social Media and Self Marketing

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Projected Time

45mins - 1hour

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• 25 minutes for Session walkthrough

• 35 minutes for Guided Practice activites

Prerequisites

None

Aim (Describe the changes you are trying to achieve with the session)

• To help trainees learn about the steps to employment

• To highlight CYF's role in the employment journey

• To highlight trainees role in their employment journey

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Objectives (How you are going to do this -the activity)‌

Through the use of a presentation, group activities and discussion

Outcomes (The changes you will have caused due to the project)

• Trainees can dentify different social media platforms you can use to accelerate your jobsearch

• Demonstrate effective ways to utilise each platform

• Make a plan to build your social media presence for professional visibility/credibility purposes

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Specific Things to Learn

• Specific vocabulary -

  • hashtag

  • startup incubator

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Session

• Link to slides

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Teaching notes and walkthrough

Slide 2

Introduce learning outcomes from the session

Slides 3 Social Media for Job search

Using social media platforms for job search can increase your visibility for your professional profile to a greater audience.

It gives you the opportunity to network with others in your chosen field.

You can gain insightful information that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

There are some social media platforms that are known for professional networking such as LinkedIn and meetup. However there are others that are somewhat unconventional but could be potentially as effective as the previous ones if used in the right way.

The purpose of today is to explore these different types of social media platforms and how you can utilise them to help your job searc and improve your visibility as a developer.

The content that we will be discussing today will be very useful in your journey but it's just the start.

We know from experience that people who use these platforms have a higher degree of exposure to hiring people.

But it’s important that it is used in the right way. Because if you don’t it can work against you.

There is no one specific way of using these platforms however there are certain pitfalls you should avoid.

Don’t discuss controversial topics on these platforms, or anything that would be against professional ethics and immoral.

Slides 4 LinkedIn

Ask What is LinkedIn?

What is it good for and how can trainees use it for their job search?

Activity 1 (2 mins) - Do a poll using Zoom to see how many people have a LinkedIn profile already

Slides 5-7 SM examples

‌‌Some examples of LinkedIn profiles and posts

Slide 8 Twitter for job search

Use Twitter to search for jobs, research companies and employees to network with

Slide 9 Twitter for personal brand

On Twitter you can create an impression of your personality and interests

Post about things that are interesting to you

Link to other sites like your LinkedIn profile or your personal website

Change your DM settings so that anyone can contact you

Slide 10 People on Twitter

Lots of people in tech on Twitter!

Learn lots from how others present themselves

Activity (10 mins): Write great bio under 160 characters. Remember to use keywords to make yourself searchable for employers.

Slide 11 Hashtags on Twitter

When you use a hashtag in a Tweet, it becomes linked to all of the other Tweets that include it. Including a hashtag gives a Tweet context and can give a conversation longevity.

https://business.twitter.com/en/blog/the-dos-and-donts-of-hashtags.html

Slides 12-13 Meetup

Meetup.com is a platform to organise informal events around any topic of interest.

It’s free to be a member - you can search for events and groups in your area.

Some events may ask you to pay to attend.

Useful for networking as well as learning!

Meet people in real life!

Slide 14 Meetup London (only share your city)

https://www.meetup.com/ukblacktech/

https://www.meetup.com/Women-in-Tech-UK/

https://www.meetup.com/Diversity-in-Tech/

https://www.meetup.com/Parent-Tech-meetup/

Slide 15 Meetup West Mids (only share your city)

https://www.meetup.com/Women-In-Tech-Birmingham/

https://www.meetup.com/Birmingham-Web-Development/

https://www.meetup.com/TechHeads/

https://www.meetup.com/You-Equal-Tech-Midlands/

Slide 16 Meetup Cape Town (only share your city)

https://www.meetup.com/Deep-South-Devs/

https://www.meetup.com/Codebridge/

https://www.meetup.com/ExpertTalks-Cape-Town/

https://www.meetup.com/Women-in-Computer-Science/

Slide 17-18 Hackernews

According to Wikipedia HN is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is part of Y Combinator one of the most influential tech startup incubators in the world.

Users can post articles and comment on articles

HN says there are two rules: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads.

Stories on HN don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested in hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting.

What does "deeply interesting" mean? It means stuff that teaches you about the world.

Users are asked to make thoughtful comments. Thoughtful in both senses: civil and substantial.

The test for substance is a lot like it is for links. Does your comment teach us anything? There are two ways to do that: by pointing out some consideration that hadn't previously been mentioned, and by giving more information about the topic, perhaps from personal experience.

So the principle here is: don't say anything you wouldn't say face to face. This doesn't mean you can't disagree. But disagree without calling names. If you're right, your argument will be more convincing without them.

Slide 19 (20 mins) - Activity 3 Jobsearch exercise

• Divide into small groups

  • Each group assigned a SM platform (LinkedIn, Twitter, Meetup, Hackernews)

  • Decide on the search terms you will use

  • Search for jobs

  • Find 2 unique jobs per team member

  • Post the job posts on thread in Slack

• Feed back on

  • How did you decide which search terms to use?

  • How effective were your searches?

  • How many jobs did you find?

  • What would you do differently?

Can give guidance on how to do search on Twitter for example: In your breakout room search for job posts on twitter using this search criteria ⇒ (developer OR Engineer) AND (job OR role) lang:en near:"London" within:30mi

You can change the location but know that certain location might not have a lot of options

Slides 21-22 Instagram

When you think of social media and personal branding you will probably think about Instagram.

You can use Instagram to establish your personal brand

By creating content related to your interests in tech

You can also use it to follow companies and influencers

You can also research, interact and network with companies

Some examples of people posting about tech on Instagram

Slides 23-24 Github

Recruiters use Github to see your code. They can see everything that you do. With a final project or a personal website there is no real way to know if you have done the front end or the back end or the design – how many users there are ? Not so good metric vs github - can see everything

Contributing to others code shows your willingness to be part of the global developer community

Helps you learn / practice how to write code

Slide 25 Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn and share their knowledge

Stack Overflow is a Q&A site. More than 50 million unique visitors come to Stack Overflow every month. It is part of a larger group called Stack Exchange Network

• Share knowledge which shows how well you understand tech concepts

• Recruiters are aware that not everyone is on LinkedIn and they explore other places where they can find great developers

• Reputation gained in Stack Overflow is more testament than CVs or LinkedIn profile

Slide 26 Stack Overflow Build your rep

Good answers are voted up and rise to the top. The best answers show up first so that they are always easy to find.

Strict rules of how write a question and answer

Good question => Specific programming problems

Bad Questions => Questions you haven't tried to find an answer for (show your work!)

You earn reputation when people vote on your posts. As you earn reputation, you'll unlock new privileges like the ability to vote, comment, and even edit other people's posts.

Badges are special achievements you earn for participating on the site. They come in three levels: bronze, silver, and gold. You get a specific badge when you perform a task like creating a profile, achieving an accepted answer with a certain score, etc there is a list.

Slide 28 Activity 4 Stack Overflow Questions - 5 minutes

• Discuss in small groups, what would be the answer you would post for this question:

  • Whats the difference between using let and var? This is something they have already learned so they should be able to answer.

• Post your answer on Slack thread.

Go through the link and show how people have answered the questions and how they get points more as people like their answer can vote on. This shows that by providing help to others you can accumulate points which makes you standout in the job market. John Slegers is the guy who wrote the answer on the screenshot from the link (maybe try ctrl f) and then go through his profile to show how his profile stands out.

Slide 29 Recap and Questions

Short summary of what each sm platform can be used for

There was a lot of information in the session. People should have questions by the end especially about looking for jobs and what it means to start building their profile now.

Guided Practice

‌All activities are in the session slides.

Independent Coursework

Listen to Podcast on Coursera

Coursera Blog - In 2020, Should You Learn Python or Javascript First? https://blog.coursera.org/in-2019-should-you-learn-python-or-javascript-first/

What advice do they give about finding a job? What things would be useful for you to do?

‌Build your profile

At this point in the course building your personal brand and profile should be your aim.

Decide which 3 SM platform are the most important for you to focus on right now.

Create an account (if needed) for the 3 platforms you chose

Write a blog post on something you learned this week. One suggestion is to write a blog for the person you were 3-6 months ago. make sure that person can understand wha you are writing about.

Send your first blog post to a peer and have them review it to see if the information is useful.

Ask them for comments and 2 ways you can improve your post before you post to the world. A

Ship it and continue this process at least once a week. Remember to keep the blog post short at first to prevent writers block and anxiety about posting.

Promote your blog on the sites you feel are most important!

Challenge or Additional resources

• StackOverFLow - how to find a job as self-taught dev