CareerTok and TikTok Resumes - How to scroll social media and find work at the same time

Can going viral on social media lead to job offers?

In short, yes. When Elizaveta Prigozhina posted to her TikTok account, discussing her current unemployment status, she had no idea it would go viral, with over 10 different companies taking this as an opportunity to send her job offers.

What’s interesting about this, is that as technology advances, and new generations rise, so too do new ways to find employment- we live in a world now where it is indeed possible for your post (provided it’s interesting enough) to go viral, catapulting it into further social spheres, shared onwards and upwards, until it finds its way snowballing onto the desk of higher ups at some of the companies who happen to be hiring.

Is this a foolproof way to get a job? No. But’s an introduction to the world of “CareerTok”, a subculture of TikTok. TikTok, as you may already be very much aware, is a popular short form video social media application known for it’s micro-communities, which range from fans of a particular celebrity to those who like to forage their own food- and CareerTok can be largely beneficial for your working life.

CareerTok provides job advice, interview advice, CV tips and tricks, and even vacancies, and it is all told informally and in layman’s terms, making it accessible to young jobseekers. With over 70million views on the #CareerTok alone, it could be a valuable weapon in any job seeker’s arsenal, with the support on there giving you and many others different ideas around how to get themselves into work.

TikTok noticed this trend and launched a program in America called “TikTok Resumes”, which allowed users to film themselves in a kind of shortform video essay, talking about their various skills on camera, while also showing how personable they could be. This pilot only lasted a month, but some major companies were fans- Target, Chipotle and World Wrestling Entertainment being among them.

Video is fast becoming a popular medium for CVs, with LinkedIn reporting that 80% of hiring managers believing that video has become more important when it comes to vetting potential new hires. We might be looking at a future where sending videos of yourself to potential employers is commonplace, although this does raise further issues- the degree of anonymity in the current method of applying for jobs means that hiring managers cannot discount candidates at an early stage for their appearance or ethnicity, but with videos, this will be less possible.

Time will tell what happens, but one thing is for sure, and that is that the new generation are finding their own ways to connect, and with it currently being a candidates market, it’s clear that employment as we knew it prior to the pandemic is bound to change, and likely mostly for the better.