Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Maybe Social Media Isn’t a Waste of Time for Your Career

September 12th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

The trend data from giant job aggregator Indeed.com, bottom, shows something very interesting happening.  Social media terms like “Facebook” and “Twitter” are appearing in more and more job descriptions every month. Since its founding in 2004, use of the term “Facebook” in job descriptions has grown an amazing 550,000% (that’s not a typo, the number really is five hundred fifty thousand percent) through July, 2010.  And it was the fastest growing in the 12-month period which ended in July, 2010.

Employers add social media terms to job descriptions because social media
is growing in importance, and they need employees with social media skills.
So, the value of your social media skills is increasing.

You can leverage your social media skills to benefit your job search in many ways.

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Activate and Manage Your Avatars

April 26th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

Avatar!Your avatars aren’t blue and sparkly and on another planet, like the ones in the movie of the same name.  But, they are in another world: Cyberspace (or maybe we should call it “Google-Bing-Blekko-space”).

In a sense, we’ve been using avatars in our job search for years. We called them “résumés,” and they are still important today, particularly  when you are reaching out to potential employers. 

Your 21st Century Avatars Bring Employers to You

Unlike resumes, which are similar in function to a product sales brochure, the new, 21st century avatars are more like a smart marketing campaign attracting employers and jobs to you!  You aren’t trying to find employers, employers are finding you because they are finding your avatars everywhere.

Seen Avatar, the movie?  (No?  GO!  Or watch the DVD!)  Picture your avatars in cyberspace, showing you at your best - demonstrating your skills and knowledge, cataloging your accomplishments and education, collecting and displaying recommendations, helping you pull the jobs in to you rather than you reaching out for them.

You don’t have a 21st century avatar? You could!  You should!  And you probably do, whether or not you know it.  Here’s how… (more…)

21st Century Job Search Revolution

April 19th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

Job search has been changing for quite a while, and the changes are picking up speed.

In the Age of Google, what you do online has an impact on your career, both negative and positive.  Learn how it works, and what you can do to both leverage it and to protect yourself.

For follow-on information, based on the questions the audience asked during this presentation, read the blog post, On-Brand Tweeting for Your Career.”

For another presentation on this topic, watch Online Reputation Management for Job Seekers.

This is the presentation I made in New Hampshire on April 9, 2010 at the Spring New Hampshire Women in Higher Education Leadship (NHWHEL), a great group!

On-Brand Tweeting for Your Career

April 15th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

Last week, I had the honor of speaking to a very smart, and congenial, group of professional women at the New Hampshire Women in Higher Education Leadership (NHWHEL).  My topic was 21st century job search and career management, so – of course – I spoke about Twitter.

I encouraged my audience to focus on Tweeting “on brand” for their careers.  Near the end of the talk, one of the questions focused on what an on-brand Tweet would look like – what it would contain and how it would be worded. That’s when I realized I had a gaping hole in my presentation.

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Top 6 Online Employer/Recruiter Magnets

January 3rd, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

These days, the most effective way to find a job is to attract employers to you.  How can you do that?  By creating and maintaining public profiles on these 6 powerful Websites.  The payoff for you will be substantial and long-term.

The good news is that these sites are free for you to use, currently.  The bad news is that this will take some time and work to create and to manage.  Not a lot because much of what you create for one site (LinkedIn, for example) can be used with minor modifications on other sites.

In addition, these effort will pay off for you when you have captured the interest of a recruiter or potential employer who researches you to see what information is available about you on the Web because they will find these sites, often at the top of the first page of search results. (more…)