Job Hunting With Social Media 101

Twitter



Twitter is an amazing networking tool and allows you unprecedented access to C level execs as well as recruiters and co-workers. Before you start connecting though, make sure you’ve got a well constructed profile. Build your profile out and link to your blog, a landing page with more info about yor, or your VisualCV or resume so people can learn more about you. Remember that everything you write on Twitter is archived in just a few minutes by the search engines. You can’t delete it from the search engines. Again, this is a huge opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge of your business and that you have your finger on the pulse. Share links to newsworthy items. Connect with friends who can help you. I’ll get to some search tools for this in a minute, but use search.twitter.com to find people talking about your area of expertise and dive into the conversation. A new Hashtag just showed up on Twitter this week called #Hirethisgrad users post their skill set along with the Hashtag and a link to their CV’s and people looking for those skills can easily scan the Hashtag for the skills they need.



Already established on Twitter? It may be as simple as letting your loyal followers know you need a job. Be specific about what you want in a job and ask for help.



Got a blog?



Start blogging about your field of interest. Demonstrate your authority. If it’s appropriate in your industry make your blog personal too. People will want to get to know you. Share your job hunting secrets or talk about changes in the industry that affect jobs. Again, keep it clean, don’t be negative. Feed your blog into your twitter stream if you have one. If your blog is established but not about your area of work interest. Start another blog. You can do a free one on WordPress in a few minutes and be on your way to creating a resource blog for your niche.



While we are talking about blogs, look for the ones that post job listings and subscribe. Jeremiah Owyang posts web strategy jobs on his site. The Social Media Club posts social media jobs.



Search



Listening is the number one skill you need to find a job using social media. Set up listening tools for the companies you’re interested in, the jobs descriptions or fields you’d like to be in etc. Share that info with your networks and suddenly you’re a resource people rely on for information in that space. Then when a job comes up in your search you’re informed and ready to go.



Don’t forget to search for yourself too. It’s not about ego. You want to know what people are saying about you so you can either put out the fire or join in the conversation.



• Set up some Google Alerts.

• Twilert will send you a daily, weekly or monthly email with the keywords or user names you want to track.

• SM2 from Techrigy can give you a pretty in-depth look into conversations with tracking and statistics for free.

• WhosTalkin can give you a way to quickly search a variety of networks to see who is talking about the space, company or person you’re interested in.

• SocialMention looks for mentions of keywords in social media sites ranging from Twitter and blogs to forms and video.



Search for companies or individuals you want to connect with and then connect through the network or directly. Learn about the corporate culture ant a company or find out more about the personalities of the people you want to work with.



Previous page | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |





http://janetfouts.com/job-hunting-with-social-media-2/



Photo courtesy of Creative Commons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/intersectionconsulting/4412472230/