How to Use Social Media to Help Find a Job

Job-hunting can be brutal: Sending out resumes and not hearing anything back; answering online job listings and seeing that hundreds of other people are applying for the same gig.

How can you differentiate yourself? How can you use today’s latest technologies to help break from the pack and push ahead?

Social media tools can help.

This week I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of HAPPEN members about social media. HAPPEN is Canada’s largest network of professionals in transition. The workshop participants were eager to learn more about social media and how they could use such platforms as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to expand their in-person networking efforts.

Donna Papacosta speaking at HAPPEN, November 26, 2013.

In this first post of this series, I’m happy to share with you some of my tips for job seekers. We’re starting with this maxim: Tell everyone!

Tell everyone you know you’re looking.
Be sure everyone in your personal network knows you’re looking for a new opportunity. And I mean everyone: your neighbours, your relatives, the other hockey parents, and the guy at the UPS store.

You never know where you’ll find your next great job. Many years ago I landed a lucrative contract from someone I met at a picnic for my new-mothers group. That was the last place I would have expected to uncover a business opportunity!

Add to your in-person network by also telling your contacts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media platforms that you’re on the hunt for a job. You could add something like this to your Twitter bio, for example: “Experienced CFO seeking new opportunity in manufacturing sector in Ottawa area.”

Connect with people who can help; help them back.
Look at the list of contacts in your database and on LinkedIn. Who could help you? Don’t be shy about reaching out to them, but be sure to ask what you can do for THEM too. This is a two-way street.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/human-resources/use-social-media-help-find-job-0699288?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=use-social-media-help-find-job