Abstract
Purpose
This paper focusses on demonstrating the role of social media engagement and considering emotional intelligence (hereafter EI) as a critical concept to successful employment, mainly when individuals fail to reach the desired employment despite “meeting” the role requirements.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopted a qualitative approach through semi-structured in-depth interviews of some randomly selected university students in the UK, young adults aged 19–32. The participants were selected based on different demographics to provide a broader and less biased representation of young adults in the UK.

Findings
This research suggests that recruitment organisations should introduce the latest requirements and trends of employers to ensure that the expectations of employers and potential candidates are aligned to improve the employment rate in young adults.

Originality/value
This research extends the literature regarding EI in social media engagement and successful employment. It also brings new perspectives on successful employment in young adults by demonstrating the role of social media engagement and EI traits leading to a conceptual framework exploring successful employment based on the role of social media engagement and EI.