By : John Challenger
As social and professional networking websites like Facebook and LinkedIn become more popular for connecting with friends and family, more and more people are visiting the sites for competitive reasons, namely the job search. As the number of unemployed workers continues to grow, jobseekers are using these sites to brand themselves in the eyes of prospective employers.
LinkedIn has always been touted as the site to network professionally; however, jobseekers are now also turning to Facebook and Twitter for job leads, advice and contact building. Hundreds of recruiters are trolling Twitter, searching for applicants with relevant skills, while jobseekers post links to their resumes, websites and examples of their work.
The Power of Twitter
Twitter, a relatively new phenomenon, now boasts over 44 million users (June 2009), according to comscore.com, and is quickly becoming the place to begin a job search. The website allows users to ‘tweet’ brief messages which are broadcast to their ‘followers,’ post links and directly message other users. With that much exposure, jobseekers have a platform to instantly pursue job leads and professional contacts.
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, one in five Americans now uses an online social networking site, up from one in fourteen just four years ago. One reason for this spike in popularity is the rising number of business professionals using the sites. Facebook’s most rapidly growing demographic is users 35 years and older, a group which already comprises more than half of the site’s daily visitors.
As the popularity of social networking sites continues to increase among older people, so will the amount of time spent on these sites at work.
Stephen Kohnle, a Business Week reader, wrote a piece on his exploits with social networking and the job search for BusinessWeek.com, emphasizing the need to stand out in a crowd during a time of record high unemployment. With all the competition, any way you can put your name out there helps, and by demonstrating your fluency with new technologies, employers will credit you with a valuable skill.
Moreover, jobseekers who decide to start their own businesses can utilize social networking sites to market their products or services. The latest results from Challenger’s quarterly Job Market Index reveals that 8.7 percent of jobseekers gaining employment in the second quarter of 2009 did so by starting their own enterprises. That is up from 6.4 percent in the previous quarter and double the start-up rate in the second quarter of 2008.
Through Twitter, new business owners can immediately connect to hundreds of potential customers while fashioning a brand for their services. Through blogging and building a social networking page, jobseekers have an edge over those jobseekers who lack similar technical savvy.
Social Sites Get Down to Business
The advantage is not just for jobseekers, as social and professional networking sites are now viewed as invaluable tools for employed professionals as well. Some companies are choosing to use social networking sites to their advantage instead of banning them from use in the workplace. The sites are being employed to communicate with current and former colleagues, as well as other industry professionals, to share best practices, meet customers, resolve issues and answer questions.
In a Challenger survey of 200 human resource professionals, about 10 percent of the respondents said their companies view social networking sites as invaluable marketing, networking and sales tools, and six percent actually encourage employees to have a presence on the sites.
Overall, social and professional networking sites are changing the face of the job search. Only a few years ago, jobseekers’ only search tools were newspapers and cold calls. Now, technology serves to instantly connect them with employers, recruiters and job leads.
Using Twitter/LinkedIn to Find Work
Build your network. Outplacement coaches from Challenger, Gray & Christmas advise jobseekers to utilize every person in their personal and professional networks. With Twitter, you can expand your network to include hundreds of people.
Build your brand. Your Twitter page can show a little something about yourself with the pictures and colors you choose. The interface allows you to post links to websites or blogs, so when building your Twitter page, make sure to include whatever relevant links you have. Start a blog discussing industry trends as you see them. Include discussions about your work. Basically, talk yourself up as a product employers must have.
Advertise your job loss. Although a job loss can be a trying time for families and loved ones, telling your ‘followers’ that you are looking for a job can be not only therapeutic, but also incredibly useful in finding a new position. Hundreds of recruiters are on Twitter and can very easily follow your tweets. You can cast a very wide net on Twitter with the potential to generate incredible results.
Think before you tweet. Twitter can be as anonymous as you want it to be. However, if you want to find a new position, you might want to spend some time on each tweet. Remember that you’re marketing yourself; you’re a product. Much like with blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, you don’t want to post anything that might give pause (nude or racy photos, questionable content, etc). Moreover, 140 characters limits your literary ability. What you read as witty, another might read as acerbic. What you think is funny, someone else might find offensive. Obviously, you want to show the world your best face, so keep this in mind when fashioning those 140 characters.
Get recommended. LinkedIn users can recommend each other’s work, so ask colleagues to advocate on your behalf on your LinkedIn profile. Recruiters trolling these sites are more likely to be impressed if former and current colleagues rave about your performance.
Join groups. LinkedIn enables users to create and join professional groups based on common interests, allowing you to communicate instantly with others in your field. Join up, and start building those relationships.
Job Vacancy , Indonesia Job , Job Indonesia
As social and professional networking websites like Facebook and LinkedIn become more popular for connecting with friends and family, more and more people are visiting the sites for competitive reasons, namely the job search. As the number of unemployed workers continues to grow, jobseekers are using these sites to brand themselves in the eyes of prospective employers.
LinkedIn has always been touted as the site to network professionally; however, jobseekers are now also turning to Facebook and Twitter for job leads, advice and contact building. Hundreds of recruiters are trolling Twitter, searching for applicants with relevant skills, while jobseekers post links to their resumes, websites and examples of their work.
The Power of Twitter
Twitter, a relatively new phenomenon, now boasts over 44 million users (June 2009), according to comscore.com, and is quickly becoming the place to begin a job search. The website allows users to ‘tweet’ brief messages which are broadcast to their ‘followers,’ post links and directly message other users. With that much exposure, jobseekers have a platform to instantly pursue job leads and professional contacts.
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, one in five Americans now uses an online social networking site, up from one in fourteen just four years ago. One reason for this spike in popularity is the rising number of business professionals using the sites. Facebook’s most rapidly growing demographic is users 35 years and older, a group which already comprises more than half of the site’s daily visitors.
As the popularity of social networking sites continues to increase among older people, so will the amount of time spent on these sites at work.
Stephen Kohnle, a Business Week reader, wrote a piece on his exploits with social networking and the job search for BusinessWeek.com, emphasizing the need to stand out in a crowd during a time of record high unemployment. With all the competition, any way you can put your name out there helps, and by demonstrating your fluency with new technologies, employers will credit you with a valuable skill.
Moreover, jobseekers who decide to start their own businesses can utilize social networking sites to market their products or services. The latest results from Challenger’s quarterly Job Market Index reveals that 8.7 percent of jobseekers gaining employment in the second quarter of 2009 did so by starting their own enterprises. That is up from 6.4 percent in the previous quarter and double the start-up rate in the second quarter of 2008.
Through Twitter, new business owners can immediately connect to hundreds of potential customers while fashioning a brand for their services. Through blogging and building a social networking page, jobseekers have an edge over those jobseekers who lack similar technical savvy.
Social Sites Get Down to Business
The advantage is not just for jobseekers, as social and professional networking sites are now viewed as invaluable tools for employed professionals as well. Some companies are choosing to use social networking sites to their advantage instead of banning them from use in the workplace. The sites are being employed to communicate with current and former colleagues, as well as other industry professionals, to share best practices, meet customers, resolve issues and answer questions.
In a Challenger survey of 200 human resource professionals, about 10 percent of the respondents said their companies view social networking sites as invaluable marketing, networking and sales tools, and six percent actually encourage employees to have a presence on the sites.
Overall, social and professional networking sites are changing the face of the job search. Only a few years ago, jobseekers’ only search tools were newspapers and cold calls. Now, technology serves to instantly connect them with employers, recruiters and job leads.
Using Twitter/LinkedIn to Find Work
Build your network. Outplacement coaches from Challenger, Gray & Christmas advise jobseekers to utilize every person in their personal and professional networks. With Twitter, you can expand your network to include hundreds of people.
Build your brand. Your Twitter page can show a little something about yourself with the pictures and colors you choose. The interface allows you to post links to websites or blogs, so when building your Twitter page, make sure to include whatever relevant links you have. Start a blog discussing industry trends as you see them. Include discussions about your work. Basically, talk yourself up as a product employers must have.
Advertise your job loss. Although a job loss can be a trying time for families and loved ones, telling your ‘followers’ that you are looking for a job can be not only therapeutic, but also incredibly useful in finding a new position. Hundreds of recruiters are on Twitter and can very easily follow your tweets. You can cast a very wide net on Twitter with the potential to generate incredible results.
Think before you tweet. Twitter can be as anonymous as you want it to be. However, if you want to find a new position, you might want to spend some time on each tweet. Remember that you’re marketing yourself; you’re a product. Much like with blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, you don’t want to post anything that might give pause (nude or racy photos, questionable content, etc). Moreover, 140 characters limits your literary ability. What you read as witty, another might read as acerbic. What you think is funny, someone else might find offensive. Obviously, you want to show the world your best face, so keep this in mind when fashioning those 140 characters.
Get recommended. LinkedIn users can recommend each other’s work, so ask colleagues to advocate on your behalf on your LinkedIn profile. Recruiters trolling these sites are more likely to be impressed if former and current colleagues rave about your performance.
Join groups. LinkedIn enables users to create and join professional groups based on common interests, allowing you to communicate instantly with others in your field. Join up, and start building those relationships.
Job Vacancy , Indonesia Job , Job Indonesia
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