My BBC Film: How To Sell Your Skills Online

Last year I was asked by the BBC to make a short film for BBC WebWise - their website for sharing different advice online. The director wanted me to explain to viewers how social media can help people better present themselves, to aid their job searching online. With companies and recruiters now using sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook more to search for new candidates, having an appealing and relevant social profile is extremely important. The aim of the film was to work with new jobseeker, review their existing profiles and offer advice on how and why to improve them.

Well the finished film is now online - just click on the video below:

If you have a problem with the video, the BBC page link is here

The young graduate in the film- Deeana -  who I met for the first time on the day, had just started looking for a new job. For the short film, I was asked to focus on three things that could help her when using social media for finding a new job. I focused on these three things with Deeana:

1. Research - understanding what your skills are and what they mean to recruiters searching online.
2. Personal pitch  - how to create the short description that forms the base of your personal profile/headline
3. Image - how the right image you present (photograph) can make a big difference

To watch the video and read the advice given, click on the link here > Andy Headworth on the BBC

It was a great experience working with the BBC film crew, and when you consider that we did a full day’s filming to get the four minute film, you begin to understand why TV and film is so expensive to create!  The filming was done at the offices of The Oyster Partnership - an awesome recruitment company in London - which Jack Barton and his team kindly helped out with. There was some good filming done with some of his team as well, but it looks like it the director decided against using it in the final film, unfortunately.

I hope you find it useful, and of course if there are people you know looking for a new job, please share it with them.

A great experience, and one I certainly learnt a lot from. Who knows what’s next on the film front?  😉