Can Social Media create an advantage in your job search?

Do you agree that knowledge is power? With social media, just be willing to look.

A couple of months ago, my partner Katherine Burik and I wanted to have a presence at a state professional association meeting. Neither of us could attend, so we decided to advertise our Interview Doctor business, and invite participants to connect with us using Twitter. Since that event, attended by 200 professionals, yes, we did connect via Twitter with some of the participants that attended. The real benefits came in learning about the other Twitter-savvy vendors, companies working in our jobs-careers-interviewing service arena. And then, investigating who they are and what they do; it’s taught us a lot more about our marketplace.

Here’s a sampling of the new Twitter connections, with vendors from the conference:

@get_jobLinked: a headhunter group from Montreal Canada, “Headhunters of the New Generation.”
@InterviewIQ: that’s Karalyn Brown, HR person and “the most connected Australian woman on LinkedIn.”
@NewCareerGuru: Holistic Job Search, a web site that offers some basic tips, and uses their site as a search engine conduit for employers and job seekers.
@HR_Missy: HR person, a Michigan fan, who tweets and twitters, now over 1,000 followers; learned from her that you can engage another Twitter person to retweet your favorite tweets.
@JenBest: a one-person resume-writing service.
@VelocityS2: a site that “creates tools for job seekers and employers looking for the perfect talent/company.”

Of these six Twitter sites (15 others not listed here) that posted at the Ohio state HR conference like The Interview Doctor, only one, @HR_Missy, has more followers than our Twitter connection (@interviewdoctor); we’re at 686 followers today. Nearly all of the others were in the 200-300 follower range. This was kind of an eye-opener to me. Our message must be spreading on social media.

How is your message getting out on social media? Do you have a robust LinkedIn profile? Are you connected on Google+ – we hear this is becoming LinkedIn’s biggest professional-jobs-oriented social media competitor. And do not forget Twitter – a lot of information, a lot of resources, and a lot of connections with which to network. What we learned about these companies helps us in our business. What you may learn about companies where you may want to work, and finding out what’s going on in your profession, is available to you.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Use social media to find out what is going on in your arena, connected to your brand. LinkedIn for sure, maybe look at Google+ and Twitter, too.
2. Build a social media footprint by connecting with others who have similar professional interests.
3. Learn a little bit more about your industry every week. How can these sites connect you with opportunities?
4. Share an opinion – make it helpful – when you have one. Opinions get followed on social media.
5. Use it to set appointments. Face-to-face, or as I recently heard, belly-button to belly-button, is still the best way to find your next gig.

Are you using Social Media to your advantage? Fifteen minutes a day; that’s all. Gain the knowledge, and learn some very current facts you can use in your search or in your business.