Posts Tagged ‘social media’

5 Worst Reasons to Use Twitter for Your Job Search

March 20th, 2011 by Susan P. Joyce

As we’ve all said countless times in our lives, “it’s all in how you look at it.”  If you see Twitter users as a bunch of self-absorbed people with too much time on their hands Tweeting about what they ate for breakfast, then that’s what you’ll see when you go to Twitter.  Not necessarily true…

5 Worst Reasons to Use Twitter for Job Search:

1.  Because your job search coach or career counselor told you that you should do it.

2.  Because you read somewhere that you should do it.

3.  Because “everyone else” is doing it.

4.  Because your spouse/significant other/teenager/tweener/neighbor set it up for you.

5.  Because you don’t have anything better to do.

Much MUCH better reasons to use Twitter for your job search exist!  Below are the first 5 I could think of.  Many more exist – feel free to add them in the comments. (more…)

New Job-Hunt Articles + Career Spotlight

September 24th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

Career Spotlight:   Did you enjoy college enough to work there? I worked in HR in a large university, and it was very interesting, a tightly-knit community within the larger world with different standards than most other industries.  College Administrators, on average, now earn $81,000 year (much more than I earned!), with an expected 10-year job growth of 14%. Over 8o% hold at least a bachelor’s degree. More about this and other careers in Job-Hunt’s Career Changers’ Guide to Careers.

Quote of the Week:  The most RT’ed quote of the week is from the amazing @2MorrowKnight who was RT’ing a quote by PBS’s Tavis Smiley (@tavismiley) -

Failing does not make you a failure.

New Articles:  Four new articles this week - (more…)

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.

(more…)

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…)

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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8 Twitter Power SEO Tips for Job Seekers

July 2nd, 2009 by Susan P. Joyce

Recruiters and potential employers search Google for job candidates, even in this economy, and Google loves Twitter.  So, by leveraging search engine optimization (SEO) techniques in Twitter, you can make it easier for them to find you, not only in Twitter but also in Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.

As a job seeker, you want to be found if someone searches on the job title you want, your profession or industry, and also your name.  Your Twitter account will be helpful for you even after you’ve found that next job.  Recruiters and employers are always searching for good people, so this account can become a major long-term asset to your career:

  • People Googling your keywords (your job title, profession, industry, etc.) will find you because your Twitter account will appear in the search results, if you have used those keywords as described in the rest of this article.
  • People Googling your name will find your Twitter account in the search results if you have used your name as part of your Twitter identity.

(more…)