A client, who is a project manager with a background in IT, insurance, and finance, talked with me about my blog and social media in general. He thinks as a career professional I should share more of my social media tips with the people who read my blog.
To me, it seems everyone is talking about that so other than an occasional LinkedIn article, like My Journey with LinkedIn or the post, LinkedIn or LinkedOut?, I have blogged about other things. His point though was that yes, everyone is talking about it but not everyone understands it. He said people don’t even get that the rules of looking for a job have changed dramatically and the way companies look for prospective employees have been transformed by social media.
So let’s start where? How have the rules changed? The resume is not passe, you still need it. But it is only the first step in a comprehensive job search. I’m not a job seeker, I’m a career professional but I explored social media partly because it fascinated me and partly because I could see where it was going. I started first by reading blogs which then helped me understand other things. Jason Alba from JibberJobber recently wrote this post about The Dark Side of Unemployment Insurance which deals about how someone who is unemployed feels on unemployment and how the system doesn’t make you feel much better about yourself. Susan P. Joyce founded JobHunt.org which Jason sites in his blog post, JobHunt.org, A Website You Can Trust as someone who is on top of the whole job search process and cares about the job seeker.
How do you figure out whose blog to read? Where do you start? You start just like I did. With someone you trust and then you move on. Laura DeCarlo, Executive Director of Career Directors International (CDI) has been a pioneer in teaching career professional like myself where to find resources and how to be proactive in teaching our clients. Recently she asked her members to help make resume writing a topic at the Business Week’s new Business Exchange project. Business Week allows us to post and save articles that relate to a topic. I have been connecting my blog posts to that resource since Laura asked.
From trusted bloggers that led me to more blogs, I went to Twitter… stay tuned for how I think Twitter can help in a job search. And get me your comments. What do you want to know about the role of social media in a job search? You let me know and I will write it. I know all the right people and where to find them!
Interesting topic Julie. Seems like there may be more in blogging, and look forward to twitter. Most interesting personally is the answer to “I’m on LinkedIn, Now What?”. Have a good sized network, still not getting much results. Tons of network requests though, so it’s moving forward.
You got all those questions from one person? They sound pretty inquisitive. heheh
Thanks!
A network is a tool, TJ, and though LI is the place for jobseekers to be, you need to be proactive and not just be there. Once you have a good LinkedIn profile, which means don’t just list where you worked, you need to show your value, illustrate your personal brand, indicate your accomplishments, and weave in your CAR stories – Challenges, actions, and results… ok, I feel another blog post coming on… stay tuned.