00:00 Irina Bouras: It is a digital identity, and the way that you are leveraging that and strategizing around it is definitely important in your job search as well.
00:11 Paola Granati: Well, for those of you like me, who thought you only had a human identity, think again, you actually also have a digital one, and if you don't, you better make sure you do especially if you're looking for a job. So today, we will be talking with Irina Bouras about social media, digital media, digital etiquette, and no wonder I decided to call this episode, let's get digital, but before we do, let's get to know Irina a little bit better. She's a business partner with over seven years of experience, started her career in the life science industry. She's currently working for a company called Skills Alliance, they're based in several parts of the world, but she is operating out of the Swiss office and they specialize in providing recruitment services mostly to companies in the field of medical technology and biotechnology. And by the way, to all of you out there working in the healthcare industry, in the medical field, in the pharma, in the life sciences, in the essential work area, a big, big, big thank you for everything you've done and everything you continue to do. Thank you.
01:33 PG: So now I think we're ready to kick this off and get digital.
01:37 PG: I'm particularly happy to have you Irina for several reasons, and I think also the audience and the listeners will be very happy because you bring as well the recruiters perspective, right? You being a recruiter, social media, I would imagine is the bread and butter to a great extent of what you do to be able to source the right candidates, at least in the initial stages. And the second reason, I'm particularly happy to have you is, for our listeners, is Irina is a millennial, so the millennials are definitely more talented, let's put it this way, in the current technology and how to use it at best, also because it's just part of the daily life in a way, so perhaps there's a more fluid definition between professional and personal social media is just a natural new language, perhaps. Irina, I'd be curious to, of course, know what is it that inspires you to be part of this podcast, and in this episode in particular.
02:52 IB: Thank you very much for the warm introduction Paola, I really like it, and you are completely true, 100%. This is definitely something that I spend a lot of time on, and social media is one of the tools that for us recruiters is very important at the moment, not to mention the fact that the millennial age group, let's say, just to give you a bit of a stat. The majority in this age group actually found their first employment through social media. I would say around 84%, according to studies, and I'm not saying it, study say it, that is definitely the preferred way of engaging with a new employer because there's more transparency and things become a little bit more personal from the very first introduction on social media.
03:43 PG: It's also from a candidate's perspective, let's put it this way, that it just becomes more personal because the company is also more visible, the leaders working in that company, the hiring manager is also more visible because he/she is probably active on social media, to your point, you can put a face and a more human look and feel to that process.
04:03 IB: It's a two-way street, basically. It's a platform also for the employer and the job seeker, because the employer can market themselves, can bring up their story, their values, make it more visible and give people a sense of who they are, so they already know what the company is all about before they even have an initial conversation, a virtual coffee or an interview. And from the job seeker side, obviously, they will be interested, who are they going to communicate to? What is it that this company is all about? Who is it that they're going to report in to? What is the team like? And it's very easy to search that information up on social media, much easier than it was in traditional ways, and as I mentioned, the majority of job seekers are definitely engaged in social media these days, particularly millennials.
04:58 PG: Great, but you know what, the other generations gotta catch up too, I mean, like my generation.
05:00 IB: I will teach you some tips and tricks.
05:04 PG: Exactly, so I appreciate that because hopefully our audience is broad enough and we'll have broad demographics, which to your point, it's important, right? To make sure that we will also speak to the right audience, but for the millennials who already know, but also for the previous generation who may learn, I do think this is gonna be a valuable conversation, 'cause there's always something to learn. So, Irina, one of my first questions is, we understand the importance of having, more and more of a personal brand and, as a candidate, now I talk about a candidate position and being clear, what you stand for, what’s your value proposition and for the younger, let's say the ones who are starting in the job market, it may be a little bit more complicated to start building a brand. It also depends on your experience and your expertise, etcetera, but that said, it's important to have a sense of, what do you stand for? So let's assume we've done all of that, we've done our value proposition, we know what we want, we know what our passions are, we've laid out a little bit the... We've mapped out the market. Then we need to be out there and we need to be visible, as I was saying before. So what, before we go into the tools, right, what is your view, what's your definition of a well-thought-through social media strategy?
06:31 IB: I'm glad you asked this, Paola, and we definitely touched on the subject of the wide spread of social media nowadays. I do have to say that almost half of the world's population is engaged with at least one social media account as we speak, so yes, it is part of our day-to-day schedules and it is part of our identity somehow, digital identity. So on...
07:00 PG: Digital identity, I like that. Actually, I'm not sure if I like it, but it is what it is, a digital identity. Let's add one more identity.
07:12 IB: Yeah, it is a digital identity, and the way that you are leveraging that and strategizing around it is definitely important in your job search as well. So to define, to come back to your question, and define a strong strategy for digital pursuit, let's say for a job, especially in this job market where a lot of... There are a lot of job seekers, particularly because of the COVID-19 situation that we've just been through and was unexpected, so the majority of people that were not necessarily in a position where they were looking for a job before are now in a completely different game. So starting off from having a profile, basically, on one of those accounts, I obviously relate to LinkedIn the most because part of my day-to-day activity is related to LinkedIn. It's a professional platform where the majority of my candidates come from, actually, and what I'm looking for is particularly for them to have an updated profile, to have that digital identity strategized somehow so I can see that they're including the fact that they're open to new opportunities, they're communicating it to me in a way in which I can see it on this platform without even speaking. So I already know, oka...
