Today's job seeker tip: Geek it up.
And don't stop at a LinkedIn profile.
Social media is emerging as a powerful tool for both job hunters and employers, according to a panel at Geekend 2010. The three-day conference concluded Saturday at the Coastal Georgia Center.
Job seekers are using social media to search for, learn about and in some cases even apply for positions.
Meanwhile, employers incorporate blogs, videos and networking tools like Twitter and Facebook to expose their companies to prospective employees.
"Social media is about building relationships, about becoming a real person or a real company in the eyes of someone you've never met," said Katrina Kibben, Monster.com's social media director. "That's what the hiring process is all about."
Kibben's fellow panelists were case studies.
Memorial Health University Medical Center's Garrick Throckmorton uses social media to search out and vet prospective employees.
And BFG Communication's Hal Thomas tweeted his job application to the Bluffton-based promotions agency a little over a year ago.
Thomas may be the first to land a job via social media. He answered an ad for a social media position with BFG Interactive, which designs websites and manages social media campaigns for brands.
His tweet: "@BFGCom @SloaneKelley It seems that BFG's future could be looking bright! http://twitpic.com/ggkrf More info at http://bit.ly/2aziWg."
The first link led to a mock Wired magazine cover featuring a picture of Thomas and headlines describing his insights on BFG and social media. The second link took BFG Interactive's content director, Sloane Kelley, to Thomas' blog, which included two year's worth of posts on social media.
"There was a lot of hoopla over my fake Wired cover, but all that did was get their attention; it did not get me the job," Thomas said. "Two year's of blogging content about social media did. I couldn't fake that.
"It was proof that I wasn't somebody who saw the ad and said, 'Oh yeah, I can do that.' I already was doing it."
BFG's Kelley has hired two more employees via Twitter since. They both tweeted links to YouTube videos rather than mock magazine covers.
Kelley acknowledges the format is a natural for her purposes, but said employers in other fields, including offline industries, could benefit from the approach.
"I got to know them in a deep way without ever meeting them in about the same amount of time it would have taken me to read a traditional resume," she said. "I could tell if they would be a good fit for us and if we would be a good fit for them."
From a recruitment standpoint, companies find value in social media by sharing their workplace culture. Job seekers are plentiful in today's environment, making attracting the right employees all the more important.
Companies like PriceWaterhouseCoopers post "day in the life" videos on their YouTube channels while many others incorporate blogs and photo and video galleries on their websites.
"An employer should do everything it can to give an added layer of depth to understanding what the job is; to give a window into what it's like to work in a company," Throckmorton said. "We need to be where our candidates are, and the web and social media is it."
Job searching and hiring through social media is not without its dangers, however.
Throckmorton, who was introduced Saturday as someone who "Facebook-stalks job applicants for a living," said recruiters should not place too much weight on what they learn about candidates through social media.
Likewise, job seekers should be aware of how they are portraying themselves through their social media networks.
"Don't be stupid," Kibben said. "You have privacy settings on your accounts for a reason. If you share something via social media that you don't want a prospective employer to see, you better make sure they can't see it."
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