Tough economic times call for more original approaches to doing countless things in your job searching, career advancing, or recruiting. Numerous job seekers and recruiters are turning away from traditional resources and are looking towards more innovative approaches such as Twitter. Twitter is a social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read other user messages. Employers and recruiting firms post job openings on Twitter, and job seekers use Twitter to help facilitate their job search. But truthfully—it’s not just as simple as making an account and letting the jobs come to you. There’s numerous ways to make the most out of your page and I’m going to describe a few ways. The first and most important way is to make your Twitter employer friendly.
Make superior use out of your bio. You only have 160 characters to post your job pitch. This section says a lot about the candidate so it’s where it can make or break your potential interview. Next, make sure you use a professional looking avatar (profile picture). Refrain from any images from your college days where you are t-shirtless with a beer in hand. Your picture says a lot about you as a person so make it polished and professional. The last part about getting your basic page set up is to utilize your twitter background. There’s a lot of space you can use to promote yourself and show potential employers your level of creativity or interests. If you choose to keep it simple and professional, no one has ever complained about a solid colored background.
Now that your basic page layout is set up, it is necessary to include many things on your Twitter to make it easier for recruiters to know your credentials. The first and most important approach is to post a link to an online CV or resume. You can use a tool like https://www.visualcv.com/resume_resources/resume_templates?_oskwdid=5356672 to make it a trouble-free experience. Next, make sure you establish yourself as a professional on Twitter. Show what you’re capable of while refraining from ways to misrepresenting yourself. When employers begin looking at you as a candidate, you’ll have a lot more than just a resume to back up your prior skills and experiences. Show what you’re capable of through examples of your work.
Now that you are promoting yourself in a positive way through Tweets, while your whole page is set up and everything is included that recruiters need to know about you, your next step is understand who to follow and who to trust. Many candidates are flustered about not knowing the right people to get in contact without realizing that more people are viewing YOUR page. Before you come in contact with a recruiter on Twitter, make sure you check out a link to their website, ask others to figure out credibility, check out their follower/following ratio and lastly and most importantly, their bio. A recruiter’s page just is as important as a job seeker’s for the same reasons. For a great example of a solid recruiter’s Twitter, observe one of Execu|Search’s non-profit recruiter’s page at http://twitter.com/nonprofitrecrtr
Good luck on your Twitter job search/recruiting experience! Remember, if you ever have any questions, the internet has 1,000’s of answers.
Dustin Willoughby Interactive Resources
Believe it or not, we live in a time where having a working knowledge of the Internet and a handful of social networking sites can offer you a leg up on the competition in your search for employment. The internet provides an assortment of free digital property for you to put yourself out there for potential employers to observe. Some of these sites are more popular than others, yet almost all of them are very simple to sign up for. The internet is an extremely quick and easy way for people to check up on things you may have included on your resume. Sure you can put “internet savvy”, but why not also back it up?
It seems like every human being has a Facebook page so I won’t go too in depth with that site, although in my opinion there is absolutely nothing wrong with having one page for personal use and one specifically for professional use. There are no boundaries as to what you can and can’t use these free services for. You could start a blog at one of many free blog hosting sites such as: Blogger, Wordpress, or Tumblr, specifically for your resume. Some employers are so busy that they won’t even open an attachment, so posting a link to your resume that is available online not only shows your previous work history but shows your initiative to actually find the space on the internet to have your resume out there. It’s a bigger step than you would think. The word “blog” itself may intimidate some people to a degree, so they think “blogging” is something particularly specific. The truth of the matter is you can use these blog hosting sites for whatever you want.
Having a presence on the Internet is becoming rather essential and is growing by the day. Twitter, for example, has its positives and negatives as most sites do, but what’s important for someone that wants to actually make good use of these social networking sites is to find out the positives that can help you market yourself. It’s true, Twitter is used by many people to let their followers know what they ate for lunch on a given day, but it can also be used for marketing and research alike. Twitter is the closest thing we have to live media coverage. It’s all about who you choose to follow.
A couple of years ago there was a massive brush fire in California. The fire fighters were “tweeting” about their progress live from inside the blaze. Amazing stuff. There are astronauts that tweet live from space! What does this have to do with you finding a job? It’s simple. Once you realize how useful a tool such as Twitter can be, you can then use it to draw interest to yourself as well as stay abreast of jobs, opportunity and pretty much everything else.
General up to date knowledge is also useful within an interview setting. At this point, virtually every blog has an option that will link your twitter to your blog or Facebook and vice versa. Again, having multiple accounts with any of these sites should never be looked down upon. The more digital space you occupy the better your chance of getting noticed and having a potential employer’s interest peaked by your “internet savvy”.
There are many other sites that are a must for job seekers. A staple for professional networking on the Internet is LinkedIn.com. As you can imagine in our recent economy, a lot of LinkedIn’s membership has become job seekers, but I can tell you from experience that many employers and recruiters faithfully sift through LinkedIn profiles and resumes for their next hire. If you are reading this and are a bit over-whelmed by starting up a new Facebook page, Blog, Twitter, or LinkedIn, don’t be. It is really quite simple and one very important factor in doing anything on the Internet is this: If there is something that you do not understand or cannot figure out: Google it. There is an answer for virtually every Internet and computer related question via the Google search engine. Good luck in your job hunt!
Michael Denny Interactive Resources
Happy Social Media Day! Social-media-web-giant Mashable.com has declared June 30th “Social Media Day” – a day to celebrate the revolution of media becoming social. Over 619 meetups have been scheduled in 90+ countries around the globe in honor of the new holiday. You can keep up with the celebrations on Twitter by tracking @mashSMday or #smday- or you can watch live video streams of other meetups at: http://mashable.com/2010/06/30/watch-worldwide-social-media-day-live-streams
Here at Execu|Search, we are very excited to celebrate the holiday, and invite you to visit www.execu-search.com/socialmedia/ for a list of all of our social media links! Let us know if you are attending a meetup or you are celebrating the “holiday” in any other way!
Stephanie Urban Interactive Resources
Over 200 professionals have joined our recently formed a LinkedIn group- New York City & Tri-State Jobs!
The group was formed for professionals seeking new opportunities & networking in the NYC & Tri-State area! Join our group today to post jobs, start discussions, and network with other professionals from New York, Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey, Central Jersey, Northern Jersey, Connecticut, and more! Professionals from all industries are welcome to join!
Expand your network! Join us in the New York City and Tri-State Jobs Group today: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=3005272
We recently formed a LinkedIn group for professionals seeking new opportunities & networking in the New York City & Tri-State Area. Join our group today to post jobs, start discussions, and network with other professionals from New York, Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey, Central Jersey, Northern Jersey, Connecticut, and more! Professionals from all industries are welcome to join!
Expand your network! Join the New York City and Tri-State Jobs Group today: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=3005272
Did you know that we have an Execu|Search Facebook fan page where we post stories, news, and other career-oriented content? We would love for ALL of our blog readers to become a fan- so join us on Facebook today!
We’ve already told you that Execu|Search is on Twitter- but now you have a way to follow all of our Tweets at once! We have created a “Twitter List” that aggregates all of our Twitter accounts:
http://twitter.com/ExecuSearch/execu-search-tweets
New York, October 2009- The Execu|Search Group has established itself on various social media sites in order to connect with job seekers in the City of New York and Tri-State Area. Adding to a 20+ year track record of innovation and excellence, The Execu|Search Group is one of the first regional recruitment firms to launch a social media initiative to assist job seekers. Utilizing multiple Twitter accounts, a Facebook fan page, LinkedIn, and a company blog (blog.execu-search.com), The Execu|Search Group interacts with job seekers and career people alike, sharing the latest career-related news, job seeker tips, and up-to-the-minute job opportunities. The Execu|Search Group believes that staying on the cutting edge of technology is necessary to success in the recruitment industry. “With more job seekers turning to the internet each day for networking and job opportunities, we are pleased with our online presence- particularly on social networking sites,” said Edward Fleischman, CEO of The Execu|Search Group. “It allows us to interact and assist them with their job search in ways that were not possible just a couple of years ago.” Social media is just one part of the innovative online resources The Execu|Search Group offers job seekers. Earlier this year, The Execu|Search Group website was listed as one of “The 20 Best Job Search Web Sites” by PCMag, one of the world’s best-known publishers of leading technology-based digital content products. Links to all of the company’s social media profiles can be found on the company’s website by visiting www.execu-search.com/socialmedia. The Execu|Search Group has been one of the City of New York and the Tri-State Area’s leading recruitment, temporary/consulting, and retained search firms. Since opening its doors in 1985, the firm has grown to service several practice areas. Headquartered in New York City with branch offices in Purchase, NY and Bridgewater, NJ, recruiters at the Execu|Search Group specialize in practice areas including: Accounting/Finance; Architecture & Engineering; Financial Services including Front Office; Graphics; Health Services: Allied Health, Healthcare, Physicians; Human Resources; Information Technology, and Office Support. For more information regarding The Execu|Search Group’s website and social media efforts, please contact Stephanie Urban at (212) 204-5123, or via e-mail at surban@execu-search.com.
According to an article on an About.com Human Resources Blog, some employers are asking prospective employees for their passwords to social media sites in which they might participate such as Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook. A few months ago, I met a NYPD recruiter who said that they ask candidates to log into their Facebook accounts and show their profiles during the interview process. I also heard a story of three candidates who were called into a group interview, only to have 2 of the candidates sent out with a copy of risque photos the recruiter found on their facebook profiles.
These stories may be far and few between right now, but the simple fact is that everyday more recruiters are turning to social networks to research potential candidates.
I have compiled a list of 5 resources to help you clean up your profile before it hurts your job search. Each site offers some insight that the other resources do not, so be sure to check them all out:
Today, The Wall Street Journal recognized that more and more companies are using Twitter to advertise their jobs in an article titled, “A New Job Just a Tweet Away.” The Execu|Search Group is one of the companies using Twitter in this capacity. We invite you to follow our Twitter accounts to stay updated on all of our latest roles:
www.execu-search.com
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