Tania Karmakar, a fresh graduate from a tech school in Calcutta, failed to crack the campus interview this year. Her scores in the engineering final exams were not good either. But she was determined not to let all this get the better of her. So she focused on jazzing up her profile on LinkedIn — a social networking site for people in professional occupations. And since she had a penchant for ethical hacking, she posted keywords such as "Tania, security analyst" and "Tania K, penetration tester" on her profile.

1. Tweet for a job
Social media platforms can help you jazz up your professional image — and build your career.
Tania Karmakar, a fresh graduate from a tech school in Calcutta, failed to crack the campus interview
this year. Her scores in the engineering final exams were not good either. But she was determined not to
let all this get the better of her.
So she focused on jazzing up her profile on LinkedIn — a social networking site for people in professional
occupations. And since she had a penchant for ethical hacking, she posted keywords such as "Tania,
security analyst" and "Tania K, penetration tester" on her profile. Penetration tester or pentester is an
expert who evaluates the security of a computer system by simulating cyber-attacks. She also joined a
professional group of security experts. Within a fortnight, professionals in the field began to reach out to
her. In August, she was hired by a top IT (information technology) firm as a web security expert. Her
salary was considerably higher than what most of her friends were offered in campus interviews.
Unlike Karmakar, Suvarthi Sircar, a third-year maths (honours) student, wangled an interview call
through Twitter. "I made a recruiter-friendly and keyword-rich bio (within the prescribed 140
characters) and started tweeting about my area of expertise."
He used Tiny URLs in his Twitter handle to add a shortened version of his complete bio-data in his
LinkedIn profile. He also made it a point to follow on Twitter the chief information officers of the top
data analysis firms. "I eventually got a call from a big software company and am confident of bagging the
job," he says.
Karmakar and Sircar are among a growing tribe of youngsters who are using various social media
platforms to build their careers. They are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other such sites to
either look for jobs or advance their careers. "We see a trend where candidates are landing dream jobs
by tapping into social networking sites," stresses Moorthy K. Uppaluri, CEO, Randstad India, a
recruitment firm. "Social media can exhibit candidates' potential as well as their interests outside work."
In addition to posting rsums on job boards and following organisations on various sites, he advises
graduates to join professional discussions forums so that they are noticed by potential employers.
Sharing work samples and accomplishments online enable them to build a profile that stands out.
A survey conducted last year in the US revealed that close to 90 per cent of employers either recruited,
or were planning to recruit, through the social media. Albeit slow, the trend is catching up in India too.
Vasant Kumar Shetty, managing director of HR One, a Bangalore-based headhunter, says that most IT
and call centres find their recruits through social media sites.
"The New Age industries find it easy to source people from the social media sites because the
information they need is available in a precise manner," he says. He advises college students to network
with their seniors in different industries through social media sites. "This will help them build a network
and get connected to the industry they want to work in," he says. Anurag Gupta, who graduated in
electronics engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, last year, found a job

2. with an American travel technology company in Bangalore through the Facebook page of his alma
mater's alumni association.
I found out that there were quite a few seniors working in the same company. I immediately got in
touch with them through Facebook. So even before I had given my interview or even joined the
company, I was pretty aware of the company and my job profile," he says.
With the help of social media, students today can unearth details about a college or the workplace they
would like to join, says Anurag Bhattacharyya, knowledge manager, Blogworks, a consulting firm which
provides strategic social media solutions to global brands and corporate houses. "Most companies have
their page on Facebook and LinkedIn where they share the latest developments, awards and initiatives
and give a good sense of the culture of the organisation. Students can follow these pages and also
engage with their peers and employees on Facebook," she says.
Some companies check a candidate's presence on websites related to his or her field of expertise. "For
example, programmers have their profile on Stackoverflow, Github and Codechef where they discuss
coding problems and submit theirs codes. For designers, employers check their Coroflot, Behance and
Dribble profiles," says Sumit Singh, HR manager, InoX apps, a technology company.
According to Debashish Sengupta, professor of organisational leadership at Alliance University,
Bangalore, a serious professional presence on social media can help students garner jobs and advance
their career opportunities.
"Students can create professional LinkedIn accounts and connect with like-minded professionals from
around the world. They can have professional Twitter handles and follow people who match their areas
and interests. Students can also create Facebook pages related to their professional interests and post
related materials, articles and links," he says. "Cultivating such networks can help them find prospective
employers in future."
Sujata Vijayakumar, a 25-year-old postgraduate in public health, was able to find the right job through
such networking. Not happy with her job at a clinical research firm, she posted her profile on LinkedIn.
She added the contact of a medical director in her LinkedIn site and requested him to let her know of
any possible vacancy. Within a month, she got a job with Bayer, a multinational company.
Encouraged by the popularity of social media platforms, online job portals are also trying to be in sync
with them. Sanjay Modi, managing director, Monster.com, an online job portal, says that BeKnown, a
professional networking application developed by Monster for Facebook, taps into a candidate's social
network to connect to Monster's database of job postings.
Sangeeta Lala, senior vice-president & co-founder, Teamlease, a top hiring firm, states: "As much as
social platforms can position a company, so can social media work for branding of an individual." She
adds that for those who are studying and are yet to garner a professional experience worth talking
about, social network sites can be a powerful tool. "These can be used to promote oneself as a brand,"
she sums up.

3. Additional reporting by Kavitha Shanmugam
WATCH OUT
Don't forget that everything you put online stays somewhere, and anyone — prospective employers, or
former bosses — can see it. So any questionable photos, offensive comments, criticisms against current
or former employers may come back to haunt you
Don't flaunt a photograph that is more suited for a dating site than a professional networking site. Don't
put such pictures on Facebook either, which more and more employers are using to find more in-depth
info about job applicants
Don't forget to check out Google Plus, Pinterest, and other social networking sites too. Pinterest,
especially, if your field is visual, like architecture or web design
Don't refer to yourself in your LinkedIn profile or Twitter headline as "unemployed" or "job seeker".
Identify yourself as someone who is professionally qualified
PROFILE PUSH
Keep profiles updated; many potential employers like to know what you have been doing in the past
The profile should always be factual, never exaggerated; it is tempting to hype yourself but exaggerated
stories can trip you up at some stage
Talk about how you have made a difference to someone or something (such as a social cause). Actions
that highlight character traits of empathy, passion and drive are appreciated
Showcase projects and group activities, which could extend to even personal positioning of hobbies,
interests, social groups
Upload research papers and authored articles which add weight to your academic profile