Many of you have finally joined social networking groups and you’re just sitting there doing nothing.
I can’t tell you how many people have gotten on Twitter because I urged them to do so, for example, and have never actually tweeted. You know who you are.
I’m not as upset up at you non Twitterers as I am at people who have signed up for Facebook or LinkedIn and do nothing. Some of you must have thought you just open an account and the cyber gods start sending you job leads.
That’s not how it works. Time to be proactive.
I’m starting an ongoing series of things to do now that you’re actually on these sites; and I’d love to hear from you all as well about success stories you can share about using the Web to find work, or help your career.
For my first topic, I decided to start with a fun one — Animal House.
That’s one of my favorite movies about college life because it really gets to the heart of how immature we are during those formative years.
Well, many of us have, or at least think we have, grown up and many of us are out in the real world of work.
If you’re in career hell right now and are wondering why the heck you or your parents paid so much money for a college degree, it’s time to stop whining and use those academic bastards.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could easily connect with the alumni from your alma mater during the years you attended. What a networking opportunity for those of you looking for a job or ready to make a switch.
People, you’ve got to be kidding me! Head over to LinkedIn right now and join your alumni group. I joined the group for Hofstra University a while back and I can’t tell you how many emails I get talking about networking events and even specifics jobs.
OK, I had no desire to attend homecoming, which was also on the group page, but I never realized how many movers and shakers went to Hofstra.
One some of these social networking sites, you’re able to search for all the people that went to your school around the time you were there. Turns out more than 3,000 people came up for me on LinkedIn. What a great opening for an email, or phone call to one of these folks.
A guy that went to Hofstra emailed me a while back when he realized I went to Hofstra and pitched himself as an expert. Alan Nierenberg had researched interviewing techniques and turned out to be a great source.
Of course I don’t limit myself to Hofstra sources, but you get my meaning. Any connection, any excuse to start a conversation is all you need. That’s old-school job searching and it works. And now you have the Internet to make it happen easier.
So stop telling everyone you’re doing the social networking thing and nothing is happening. “Doing” means you actually get off your butt and do.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:46 am
I think it’s great that you’ll be covering how to use these sites. You’ve already covered a lot of “don’t do stupid stuff and post it online” topics, so this your new topic is what many will need.
I’m in IT, and I’ve used LinkedIn to find former colleagues and school associates (classmates and former students of mine) who have experience in areas where I need some assistance. It could be answering a question, getting advice on a project, or (and this has been huge) getting recommendations regarding trusted sources for IT services in our area. It has also helped me to locate some contract workers for special projects that have popped up.
One of the biggest questions I have, is this: if you are interested in other job possibilities, what strategies can you take without setting your profile or your status message to reflect your job-seeking status? If I’m looking for help, or even if another department where I work is looking, I’ll often post that information in my status. Do others seem to be doing that? Telling others what positions are available (or, more specifically, what skills are being sought by the company) would make things much easier on those who are interested in looking, but don’t want to label themselves as “shopping.”
I’ll be completing an M.A. in Organizational Leadership next year. I’d really like to start feeling out possibilities, but I would not want to jeopordize my current employment situation, either.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Hey HikingStick, What a great question. We are so wrapped up with job seekers who are out of work right now that we forget about the stealthy job seekers looking for new gigs even though they still have gigs.
I posted this question on Twitter just now to see if we get any great insights regarding what to put on your status.
Some interesting status updates I’ve seen ask questions about particular industries — something like, “looking for research on product X” or “looking to network with engineers in X systems.”
These are ways you can find out what people, employers, etc., are working on without saying you want a job.
Sometimes you do see job openings hiring managers have on status updates, but I’ve mainly seen these on group update pages, not often on individual pages.
I’ll post more info as it comes in.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Thanks, Eve. I’ve paid little attention to groups because some of those I joined originally seemed to have an inordinate amount of “professional spam” for financial and consulting services. I’ll give them another look.