Career Smart Job Search Strategies Using Social Media

Step One: Audit Your Social Media Presence

We've all heard the stories of employee's who have been fired because of inappropriate behaviour on social networking sites like Facebook. Less well known, but equally as career limiting, is that your online presence can prevent you from being hired.

Social media makes it much easier for recruitment agencies and HR to research who you are. They can easily Google your name. Some of the first results will be for your profiles on LinkedIn and similar sites. In fact from 2008 to 2009, the number of hiring managers using social networking websites to screen job seekers more than doubled from 22% to 45% (according to yearly survey results from CareerBuilder). That's nearly one in two hiring managers using social media to recruit or screen candidates for jobs today.

More than a third of hiring managers (35%) immediately screened out candidates based on what they found on candidates’ social networking profiles. That's why it’s very important to audit and evaluate your online presence through a recruiters eyes.

1. Search Yourself

Use Google first because it’s the most common. Check out the results on the first 3-4 pages at least. Repeat the process with other search engings like Bing and Yahoo as you may find different information.

2. Smarten Up Your Online Profile

Make a list of any negative references found in your search and then take action to deal with the less than flattering results. For example:

• Tidy up your Facebook profile. Remove inappropriate comments and photos and ask your friends to do the same. Some things may not be correctable so be prepared to discuss any issues that may arise in an interveiw so you’re not caught off-guard.
• Balance out negative things on sites like MySpace and FaceBook by asking your friends to post referrals or positive comments. If you can generate enough positive comments the negative references will be pushed out of sight by the positive information.

3. Set Up Google Alerts

This is not about ego. You want to know what people are saying about you so you can either implement damage control or join in the conversation. Go to www.google.com/alerts. Google Alerts will send you emails at regular intervals (either once a week, once a day, or “as it happens”) with links to web pages that include your name, or whatever keyword you request.

4. Check your Credit Score

Depending on the company and the position you're applying for some employers may run a credit check. You can request a free credit report from Dun and Bradstreet if you apply here and the Veda Group if you apply here. (Ignore the stuff about paying - you don't have to if you're prepared to wait 10 days). 

DEFINITON
Online Reputation 
An online reputation is the publicly held social evaluation of a person based on his or her behaviour, what he or she posts, and what others (such as individuals, groups, and Web services) share about the person on the Internet.
  

Your Online Presence
31% of people have never conducted a search on their own name using a search engine to learn what is visible to potential employers.
Are you one of them?

35% of employers are now using your credit report history as a means of judging personal responsibility.

Step 2 Create Your Online Profiles

Use social media tools to develop a personal and professional online brand that reflects your skills, talents, qualifications and experience. Don't dilute your personality, being a real person online with a strong and consistent presence across all your social networks helps recruiters get to know you, and sets you apart from a list of names and resumes. Your online profile is more likely to show up in Google search results if you interact with it regularly, so it’s better to focus your efforts on a few sites than to create a mass of profiles you’ll never visit again. (See the list of social media tools below)

Tips for Creating Your Profile

Include your full name as a username or in a bio - as well as other key words that identify you, such as location.

Use the same picture across your networks to help with recognition

Create a vanity URL for Facebook, LinkedIn and other networks.
(e.g. facebook.com/sarahjohnson; linkedin.com/sarahjohnson)

Create a simple, concise, easy to understand, 30-second job pitch and memorize it. Include it in your Twitter bio, your LinkedIn profile, Facebook and any other social network that you are on. Use it at networking events.

Managing and Maintaining Your Online Profiles

Keeping your social media profiles updated is a key component to your success. This is especially true if you are using social media as part of your strategy to get a new job. If you're maintaining multiple profiles then you may want to consider using TweetDeck. TweetDeck is free and allows you to connect across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Google. You can update all or just a few with the same status at one time.

Only 18% of hiring managers polled by CareerBuilder in 2010 said they were encouraged to hire a candidate due to his or her online presence.

Online Profile Social Media Tools

Your Google Profile
Your profile is the way you present yourself on Google products and across the web. With your profile, you can manage the information that people see--such as your bio, contact details, and links to other sites about you or created by you. Go to www.google.com/profiles

The Facebook Guide
Facebook is the world's leading social network. To help you get the most out of it Mashable has created The Facebook Guide Book, a complete collection of resources to help you master Facebook.| http://mashable.com/guidebook/facebook/

The Twitter Guide Book
Mashable has also produced the most comprehensive guide to using Twitter on the Internet; covers basics to advanced practice | http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/

Other Options to Build your Online Profiles
Share your favourite links with your friends on sites like StumbleUpon or Digg
Display your best photographic efforts on image sharing sites such as Flickr or Picasa
Upload a few of your best professional slide presentations on slideshare - if the information is commercially sensitive create special presentation on an area of your expertise
If you have something really good to share, upload personal videos on video sharing sites including YouTube and Vimeo
Visual resumes are some of the newer tools people are using to get noticed however before you invest time and effort in creating a visual resume, build a solid LinkedIn profile first.

LinkedIn
The most business-oriented of the large social media sites, LinkedIn is a network of professionals who connect according to common industry, geography, specialties, career goals, ideas, and more. Used correctly, it conveys the same information as a good resume and establishes a network of relationships that cannot be targeted using traditional job search methods

Generating Referrals
Referrals from within the organisation (18%) and outside the organisation (9%) are the most successful ways to land an opportunity. A blended strategy of using social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, helps identify referral opportunities.

Step 3 Tracking Job Opportunities using Social Media

Real time monitoring is the number one strategy you need to implement to find a job using social media. You can automate this by setting up tracking tools that will help you to:

• Learn about an industry and/or the companies you're interested in
• Target the type of jobs or fields you wish to apply for

Set Up Google Job Alerts
Set up Google Alerts to help you monitor job leads that rarely appear on major job boards. Test what works best by starting with a broad search string, and then adjust your keywords and narrow your search until your results are relevant. e.g. (Auckland AND marketing) AND (manager OR director) AND (position OR listing OR job)

Other Tracking / Listening Tools

• Twilert will send you a daily, weekly or monthly email with the keywords
  or user names you want to track.
• SM2 from Techrigy can give you an in-depth look into conversations
  with tracking and statistics for free.
• WhosTalkin can give you a way to quickly search a variety of networks
  to see who is talking about the space, company or person you’re interested in.
• SocialMention looks for mentions of keywords in social media sites
  ranging from Twitter and blogs to forms and video.
• Remember to register for emailed job alerts from main job boards as well

Your Lead Generator
45% of your leads will come from using the internet as your lead generator—8% resume posting, 31% online published openings, 6% email/online networking

Targeting
Sending 40 – 50 resumes to targeted companies will be far more productive than sending resumes blindly to every job that appears on a job board. Statistics show that only 1% of job seekers are successful using the latter method.

Focus your Social Networking

Some social media experts suggest that you should spend as much as 36 hours per month building an online presence. That's almost the equivalent of a working week and therefore unsustainable for most fulltime professionals. If you don't have an online profile now and you don't want social media to consume your life then pick one site to concentrate your efforts and do it well. If you're a profesional then a good place to start is Linkedin.

LinkedIn is the top career networking site and an excellent way to connect with people who can help with your job search and/or who work at a company you're interested in.