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New Tools, Same Skills, No Silver Bullet - Social Networking to Find a Job

Wherever you look these days someone is prophesying about how Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are revolutionizing business including job search. There is also a lot of consternation about which to include into business and personal life. While some may say “You have to be on X…” if the tool might not fit you. While it took me awhile to jump into the social media pool, I would recommend at least giving some of these tools a try to see how they can be integrated into your business and personal life. By completely dismissing these tools as a fad, as many of done, you are missing out on opportunities that can enrich your life personally and professionally. At first I dismissed many of these tools as time killers or too difficult for me to manage but here I am on the other side using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook along with many others to not only connect with other business people but also enriching my life daily with news, information and new personal connections.

But how are these tools used in a job search? Especially when one of the hardest things to do in a job search is to stay focused and following all of the social media updates can make you much unfocused. Use the tools in a variety of steps rather than becoming caught up in how many followers you have or what updates you should be doing or reading.

First Step: Research

In any career search, you need to stay abreast of industry happenings, community news, business terms, etc., but if you are not in a current work environment or a different work environment how can you find out what is happening? Typically much of this can be done around the proverbial water cooler or industry events, but in this tight economy and during a career search you might not have the time or resources to attend every industry event or you might not even have a water cooler.

This is where leveraging a social media network can be of advantage. Which tools would you use for this? Each tool has a different affinity for each person. For research I first use Twitter and then next I use LinkedIn and Facebook. Why? I have built a network of individuals on Twitter that cover the gamut from military, defense and intelligence to marketing, career development and management. Each individual shares news tips, articles they recommend and events that they are part of. In the 6 months I have been on Twitter, I have connected with more professionals in key communities than I would have been able to offline.

For the next step of research go to LinkedIn and Facebook, and search for groups to participate in based on key topic. In the LinkedIn Groups, I search for groups in these key categories: Gov 2.0, military and security clearance groups. Again within these groups, I find articles, news tips and events. In LinkedIn Groups, there are also job postings. In Facebook, you have the same Groups functionality that you can join and scan information in key topics. Again I use the same search terms as I used fro LinkedIn.

Second Step: Connect

As the term “social networking” states, these are networks. Your next step is to build your network or bring your network online. The first step is building your profile which is an expanded version of your resume. One exercise is to take your resume and expand it with information about each of your positions, schools you attended, groups that you volunteer with, articles you may have written, etc. and use this as your template for building your profile online. The first place to do this will be LinkedIn. The more information that you can add to your LinkedIn profile the more the back end technology of LinkedIn can support you in connecting with current and former colleagues. The next step will be to take those contacts in any rolodex, address book or Outlook contacts into LinkedIn. While this may seem time consuming, it is a very beneficial first step in building your online presence and one that recruiters and business colleagues will use in learning more about you.

While LinkedIn is stated as one of the best business connecting social media sites, I have actually had more success with Facebook and Twitter to reach out to potential customers (two actually while writing this article: one from Facebook and one from Twitter) than I have from LinkedIn.

Third Step: Expand and Support

Now that you have built your base, it is time to expand and support your network. In all three — Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, you can expand your networks searching for other professionals to connect with by using the search functions. In LinkedIn and Facebook, you may also utilize the Groups function to connect with other people that are part of your groups. Many people have reached out to me and visa versa once they have seen an article I posted or added a comment to a discussion. This takes time, you didn’t have 200 friends the first day of school and it will take you awhile to build your network. It is about quality not quantity.

The final task is supporting the network. Just like a garden, you can’t just throw seeds into the ground and aspect tomatoes the next day. You need to participate in your networking community both offline and online to make it effective and fruitful. What does this mean? Post a comment in a discussion group, ask a question and be sure you answer questions from members of your network. One useful tool that I use is the “share” function at the bottom of any article that I read. Most online news sources allow you to share articles with your networks through simple click technology. I have found that sharing news articles that I have found useful to me in both my professional and personal life as a useful way to support the networks that I am part of and I appreciate those people in my network who share their articles.

Overall, these are a new set of tools to use in your career search but you are using your same skills: research, connecting and relationship building that you have used before. Many have asked me why I would venture into using these tools when my previous tools were working fine. My answer is that each one of these tools is a new way to communicate and relate. Everyone has a different way that they like to communicate from phone and email to text and Twitter. By having a presence in each of these communities, you can expand the number of ways to connect with others.

If you are more of a visual person, here is the slideshare presentation we have given at the Cleared Job Fairs on Using Social Networks for a Job Search.

Social Media Tools for Job Search Action List

LinkedIn Profile

1. Create an account using your expanded profile.
2. LinkedIn will search though its entire database to find people who have similar items in their profiles such as companies or schools and recommend your linking to them. You will have to invite these individuals to link to you and they will have the option of accepting or not.
3. You may search in the Groups section to find groups that would be of interest to you such as government contracting, military or other interests. You will have to ask permission to be part of a group. Some groups you will accept you automatically; others the group manager will have to approve you. You may also want to check out the ClearedJobs.Net LinkedIn Group.
4. There is an indicator on your profile which tells you what additional items that you need to do to have a complete profile such as what your interests are, a picture or a status update.

Facebook

1. Create your profile using the profile that you did for LinkedIn. You will not need to use as much information as you did with LinkedIn. You can also select for your profile and information to be kept private. This means that anyone who wants to see your information must ask your permission first.
2. Using the search function, you can search for colleagues, friends and family. Do realize that there are lots of people in the world and you will probably find more than one Kathleen Smith in the results.
3. Also using the search function you can search through groups to find networking or professional associations to belong to.
4. You may also want to search for ClearedJobsNet and become a Fan of our page. You may also look through which fans we have to see if we have any friends in common.

Twitter

1. Create a profile — in the profile you do have the option of allowing anyone to follow you or that your updates are blocked, and someone must ask permission to follow you. This is your choice and you can change it at anytime.
2. Search for ClearedJobsNet and click “Follow”.
3. Click on the list of people that ClearedJobsNet is Following and select which of those people you would like to follow as well.
4. Use the search function in Twitter to find other people either using their name or topics such as military, or Special Agent Oso.

Social Media Primer

Here is the basic information on each of the tools that discussed in this article plus a few others to round out the information.

Twitter

This is a tool that is called a “microblogging” site. Why? Because you write short updates that are called “tweets” that are no more than 140 characters. On your account page, you read updates from people you are following. When you post an update, the people that are following you will see your updates. Similar to Apple, Twitter has many applications that are available to use with Twitter. These are all offered by other vendors than Twitter and most are free. One of the most helpful for me has been Tweetdeck which allows me to see the people I am following, anytime someone mentions me or sends a direct message. It also has a search function so I can follow discussions that have key words in them such as military or security clearance. ClearedJobs.Net Twitter account

Twitter Search

This is a real time search capability, which means at any point in time you can type in a key word or phrase, and see who is sending updates about that topic at that moment. You do not have to have a Twitter account to use this site.

Flickr

Photo and video sharing site. You need to set up an account to upload photos but not to view photos. It is a very easy site to use and upload your photos and videos. It is also a good tool to search for company press releases or activities. The basic membership of Flickr is free, but to get a lot of storage for your photos you may have to upgrade to Professional which is only $25 a year. ClearedJobs.Net Flickr account

LinkedIn

According to Wikipedia, LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site mainly used for professional networking. As of May 2009, LinkedIn had more than 40 million registered users, spanning 170 industries. One of the beauties of LinkedIn is the ability to keep your professional network up to date and active no matter where you are employed or if you are unemployed. LinkedIn is free for a basic membership and then charges monthly fees for premium services. and ClearedJobs.Net LinkedIn account

Facebook

A free access social networking website where users can connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. The website's name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a college campus community. ClearedJobs.Net Facebook account

YouTube

Video viewing and sharing site: You do not need to have an account to view any of the videos on YouTube. This is a good resource for finding educational or how to videos on career search, resumes writing, and interviewing. You can check out the ClearedJobsDotNet You Tube Channel which has interviews with recruiters, seminars and quick instructional presentations. ClearedJobs.Net YouTube account