Creating a Professional Online Presence
With the introduction of social media travelers now have almost instant access to the agencies and recruiters that have the contracts. But with that comes the real fact that they also have instant access to you and what you post publicly. Whether we are aware of it, or not, recruiters are paying attention to how we conduct ourselves and that includes everything from how we portray ourselves in our personal posts, how we conduct ourselves in groups, how we interact with other group members and our responses to them. If you are confrontational they are making note of it. If your reponses read like a text message? That is not a very good impression either. It may not effect you right now, but in the future if the one agency that has the contract where you have been dying to go and just so happens to also be the recruiter who you were not so polite to in a group- perhaps they may not return phone calls as quickly as you would like or they might even decide, without really knowing anything about you, that you are just a good fit for their agency.
If you want to make a great impression we have a few tips that will help you do that!
We can not answer every single phone call and every once in awhile recruiters are bound to have to leave a message What does your voicemail sound like? When you email your potential recruiter, do you sign the email with your social media nickname?
Present yourself as a professional
Make your voicemail friendly, yet professional:
--EXAMPLE-- "Hello, you've reached Michelle. I am sorry I can not answer your call right now. Please leave your name, telephone number and a detailed message and I will return your call as soon as possible. Thank you for your call, have a great day!"
Using a Nickname on Social Media is very common.
Chances are when you email a recruiter you do not sign the email with your social media nickname. If you want to use a nickname, then fine, by all means use one. A suggestion is to create a "work" account and use that account when communicating with recruiters.
Traveling for a living, 13 weeks at a time, is what most people dream of. The last thing we would want to do is a burn a potential bridge before we even have the opportunity to cross it.
