- Landing a new job is exciting on both a personal and professional level, and many people share the news on social media.
- HR expert Carly Holm shared her top tips for posting about your new job on LinkedIn with Business Insider.
- Holm advised against oversharing and recommended keeping posts concise, professional and positive.
A LinkedIn job posting is often the first way your professional network hears about your new position. It’s likely to be seen by past, present, and future employers, so it’s definitely worth your time.
Carly Holm, founder of Nashville-based Humani HR, has 16 years of experience in human resources and previously held roles at Bank of America and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. She told Business Insider that she loves it when people advertise their new jobs on LinkedIn.
Holm said it’s a positive for an employer to see a new employee’s network commenting and engaging with these updates, especially when they come from previous employers and colleagues.
However, as with all online postings, sharing your new position online can have its risks, and Holm offered five potential mistakes to avoid when advertising your latest job.
1) Sharing too much
The problem is that these posts can backfire if too much information is shared, Holm said.
“You should never talk about your previous employer,” he said, and advised against ever saying why you left your last job and why you wanted to join this new company.
Holm said job ads should be “concise,” “professional,” “direct” and “positive.”
He argued that although LinkedIn is a social media platform, it is not like Facebook or Instagram, which are more suited to sharing your more intimate or private experiences.
“I don’t really think LinkedIn is the place to overshare personal information,” he said.
2) Problems finding work
Holm says she has mixed feelings about someone sharing the struggles they’ve experienced in the job market in a new job posting.
This is where a person opens up about applying to, say, 500 companies over a 16-month period, only to receive hundreds of rejections.
She says these kinds of difficulties should be reserved for people in the real world.
For Holm, a job advertisement should always be positive.
3) Change of job
It’s best not to announce the start of a new job at an organization too frequently, as this may mean a change of job, Holm said.
Changing positions or companies in a short period of time is considered changing jobs.
“If people change jobs a lot, that doesn’t look good in the eyes of any employer,” Holm said.
“If I have someone in my network and every six months they announce they have a new job, that’s going to generate a bit of surprise,” he added.
While there are different situations and sometimes things just don’t work out, a recruiter might wonder why this person hasn’t kept their job, Holm said.
4) Time
She recommended waiting to announce a new position until you actually start working at that company. Anything can happen between when you receive a job offer and when you start working, so you don’t want to announce your news too soon.
You don’t want your current colleagues or employer to find out you’re leaving your current workplace through LinkedIn, Holm said.
5) Company policy
You should check to see if your company has a social media policy. Holm told BI that there are some situations where it is not appropriate to make a job announcement, especially if it is a more confidential position, but this is rare.
Another example Holm shared about how to avoid drawing attention to a job update was that of startups in stealth mode.
When in doubt, she advises talking to your manager first just to double-check.
