Last night I was invited to speak at a networking event for job seekers presented by Gretchen Gunn and her recruiting services company MGD Services. Gretchen is a dynamo who is passionate about her work and giving back. My focus was on social media for job searching, but I began by discussing some fundamentals. Since social media is but one of the tools in the toolbox, I talked about the importance of creating a professional presentation/profile whether on your business card, in person, in an email, or within the social media landscape.
Chanin Milnazik of Brown Dog Design once said, “your business card is your interview suit”. With that, “social resume” seems to be the new buzz term encompassing the three dimensional world we live in these days, and it’s more important than ever to present yourself well. As Gretchen recently blogged about, this is especially current with the paper resume becoming “obsolete”. There are a seemingly limitless number of social media avenues to help job seekers whether directly, like Linkedin, or indirectly like the great networking and follow up that can happen via Facebook and Twitter. In addition to the “biggies”, there are of course tons of specific sites for job seekers from monster.com to careerbuilder.com and even craigslist.org (though be sure to watch out for scams). Personally, I think indeed.com is the best and a real time saver since they aggregate from all the other sites.
It’s also a great time to get creative. Let’s face it. In a tight job market, YOU need to stand out from everyone else in the sea of job hunters. How about creating a youtube “commercial” about YOU and why you should be hired, or similarly, what about creating a Facebook PAGE like the businesses do, but the BRAND is YOU. What creative ideas do YOU have? The sky’s the limit, so think big and good luck out there!
SOCIAL MEDIA RESUME:
http://www.brazencareerist.com/about/social-resume
http://mashable.com/2011/11/20/social-media-resume-tips
TWITTER:
Best 100 Twitterers to follow for job searching info: http://www.youtern.com/thesavvyintern/index.php/2011/12/14/top-100-twitter-accounts-job-seekers-must-follow-2012
http://mildredtalabi.com/three-killer-reasons-to-include-twitter-in-your-job-search
Also, check out these great APPS for your smartphones and tablet devices:
JobAware, Snapdat, Lunchmeet, Linkup, Realtime Jobs, twitjobsearch.
If you still need/want proof of how important social media is in your job search, check this infographic:
http://mashable.com/2011/08/28/social-media-recruiting-infographic
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