job hunting with social media
DESCRIPTION
A Joseph Project (http://workmatters.org/the_joseph_project/) presentation about using Social Media in the job hunting processTRANSCRIPT
May 12, 2010
SocialMediaRevolutionary.com
Job Hunting With Social Media
Overview
2
Define goals and target relevant companies
Complete profiles fully
Make connections
Focus on professional networks
Join industry specific networks
Be creative with media
Social Media Is Not A Fad
3
Simple Social Media Strategy
Home Base –The central
place you want to interact
with people
Outposts – place where you
have a presence and
participate and promote
yourself
Passports – where you have
profile but don‟t take part in
the conversation
4
What Is Your goal?
Clearly define the industry
you‟re interested in
Identify 10-20 keywords
that apply to your job
Are they in a field that
uses social networking?
Vendor community had
only 1024 queries per
month.
Somebody out there is
talking about what you‟re
interested in. Find them.
Consider Targets
Identify the top five companies that you
would like to work for
Use search engines to track employees that
currently work there
Connect with the person directly and invite
them to lunch
Does the company have an outpost on social
media networks?
Follow on Twitter
Join Facebook Fan Pages
Join LinkedIn Groups
Use local resources-@nwajobs on Twitter6
Where Do Employers Start?
How do you want to be found?
What keywords are important to your job search?
Complete Profiles Fully
Make sure your target
keywords are in your
profile
Link back to one place,
your “home base” that
has all the detail about
you
Be a real person
Use a picture
Talk about your
personal life…a little
Make Connections
Tell everyone you‟re
looking for a job
Exploit Strength of Weak
Ties
Crowdsource your job
search
Give back, pay it forward
Introduce yourself to
strangers
Be humble
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---- Strong Ties
---- Weak Ties
Be Polite
Don‟t consistently talk about
yourself and not help others.
Don‟t randomly approach
followers you barely talk to
and simply ask for favors.
Don‟t introduce yourself as
“Pink House Gardening.”
Don‟t spam.
Don‟t publicize private
conversations.
10
Remove Inappropriate Material
•Check your profile and your friends’ profiles for
•Pictures
•Comments
Focus On Professional Networks
First
LinkedIn is the office
Facebook is the home
Twitter is Happy Hour
12
LinkedIn Best Practices
Excellent home base.
Follow their profile setup tool.
Complete profile fully, including picture.
Get recommendations.
Import all your contacts from Outlook, Gmail, etc.
Gives you 2nd, 3rd level links to their networks.
Join appropriate groups.
Search for jobs and people on a periodic schedule.
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Be explicit: “I‟m looking for a job in the
NWA area as an XYZ.”
Don‟t be pathetic: “Please, please, please
give me a job. I‟ll take anything.”
Update often.
Be relevant: make sure your keywords are
in your posts.
Connect it to your home base and
outposts.
Use a Twitter client like HootSuite or
TweetDeck to stay organized.
Link to status of LinkedIn and Facebook.14
Twitter Example “Basically, I was „stuck‟ at my previous job in that there was no
place to move up, and my job was morphing into something
completely different than what I was hired for. So I was on the
lookout. Submitted my resume to a few places, but never heard
back from anyone. I had seen tweets from @nateritter for a
couple of weeks that he was looking for a CakePHP developer. I
knew PHP but not specifically the Cake framework. One day,
while on the elliptical at work, I saw a tweet from him saying he
needed a “PHP” developer. I DM‟d him back saying something like
“don‟t you need a Cake person?”. To which he replied that he
couldn‟t find a Cake person so he expanded to just PHP. I said I
was interested and met him later that week. Now I work with him
and couldn‟t be happier.” -Todd Armstrong, @cantondog
15Source: http://mashable.com/2010/03/08/job-seeker-results/
Show Your Expertise
Start a blog.
Free options:
Blogspot
Wordpress
Comment on target companies‟
blogs. Become a regular.
Participate in groups:
Yahoo!
16
Blog Example “I got my job thanks to my food and music blog. A recruiter that
was working with my company, Context Optional, happened to be
a foodie that was familiar with my blog and was impressed with
my social media know-how. Funny enough, a number of people at
my company got their jobs through social media–our Community
Manager, Lauren Friedman was also discovered through her blog,
TheOffBeatReport, and Twitter.” - Kasey Fleisher Hickey,
@kfleisher
17Source: http://mashable.com/2010/03/08/job-seeker-results/
Explore Industry Specific Networks
NurseLinkup - Nursing
Model Mayhem - Modeling
FohBoh - Restaurant Industry
ActiveRain - Real Estate
Decorati - Interior Design
Fashionising - Fashion
TheBoaters - Boating
TappedIn - Education
Be Creative – YouTube Interview
19
Other Ways To Be Creative
Make a presentation
about your industry
and put it on
SlideShare.
Advertise your brand
using AdWords and
Facebook Social Ads.
20
Blog Example “I got the attention of 2 companies, who would have never even
considered me because I didn't live in their city, with a simple ad. I
went to Facebook, created the ad which targeted directly to folks
that worked at these particular companies and asked for a contact
in HR. The ads read something like "I want to work at <insert
company> - Hi, my name is XX, I'm a <digital marketer, social
media, web strategist, programmer, designer, etc>. I'd love to
work at <insert company>, can you help me out? I set a small
budget of about $5/day and sent the ads to my online resume
located at http://onehalfamazing.com/resume. I had 2 interviews
within a couple of days and spent a total of $12 to land both of
them.” - Bob Hazlett, http://onehalfamazing.com
21Source: http://mashable.com/2010/03/08/job-seeker-results/
Parting Thoughts
Social Media is not a replacement for traditional job
searching techniques.
Social media is an indirect method of marketing. Sometimes
its hard to see concrete results quickly.
Keep track of the conversation:
Google Alerts
Twitter Search
Using Social Media will put you ahead of the crowd since it‟s
so new.
Social media is a conversation not broadcast medium. It is
two- way.
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Questions?
