Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

How to use Facebook for your job hunt

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In the ever-changing face of social media tools, more and more applications and companies are focusing how how to use Facebook’s social graph of over 600 million users for professional networking purposes.

If you regularly use Facebook, it’s not news to you that they updated their settings and redesigned your “home” Facebook page. If you don’t regularly review your own Facebook profile, it may be time to start! It is important to know how your profile looks to others and to use it to your advantage. Visit your page and click on PROFILE.

You can see that it now displays photos as well as information about where you went to school, where you work, where you are from and your relationship status. In the past, this was data users only found if they went looking through the various tabs on your profile.

If you are clever, like Richie DeMatteo of CornOnTheJob fame, you can use this new set up to market your job hunt. He tagged himself in some messages and posted them to illustrate how you may manipulate the newest Facebook design to your advantage:

You can see CORN ON THE JOB instead of the photos that would normally be in those spots. Fun and original!

The design means that it is much easier for people to to learn more about you without much effort.

Learn how to use photos, the education and work section, languages and privacy settings to your advantage on my Job-Hunt.org column…

photo by jaycameron

How to ask for LinkedIn recommendations

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You’ve probably seen it on LinkedIn — “6 people have recommended Bill,” or “16 people have recommended Sue.” Having at  recommendations on LinkedIn will help people recognize your strengths.

There are a few best practices when it comes to asking for recommendations on LinkedIn:

  • It is not not necessarily better to have a lot of endorsements. You don’t need 58 recommendations. In fact, some people say that they are suspicious when people have what they consider excessive numbers of endorsements. I was once conducting a workshop, and a participant found a colleague who had a lot of recommendations — I can’t remember exactly how many, but a lot! She said, “Wow, that’s impressive.” Upon further investigation, each recommendation was reciprocal — that is, she had endorsed everyone who endorsed her. All of the sudden, it seemed less impressive. Which leads us to…
  • Be sure not all of your recommendations are “you endorse me and I’ll endorse you.”

It’s easy to ask for a recommendation on LinkedIn. (Maybe a little too easy!) All you need to do is click through to “Privacy and Settings” and under the “Profile” tab, click “Manage Your Recommendations.”  Click “Ask for Recommendations” on the top toolbar. Then, you can choose the job you want a recommendation for and select people to ask for the endorsement.

Here are some tips to get the best recommendations possible:

  • NEVER ask more than one person per message. Each recommendation request should be personalized and specific to the endorser.
  • Recognize the most people have no idea what to say and can use some guidance. It is your job to help steer your recommenders along the right path. For example:

“I am updating my LinkedIn profile, and I’d be honored if you would write a recommendation for me. While I am not currently looking for a job, the skills most important in my field include:  customer service/communication abilities, being self-directed and deadline-driven, as well as paying attention to details and having an inquisitive nature. I hope you will be able to comment on any of those in your note. I have an updated LinkedIn profile if you’d like to review it.”

If you need help updating your LinkedIn profile, contact me!

Providing information that helps your colleague or former supervisor know what you want him or her to say goes a long way to ensuring a) he or she actually writes out a reply and b) the recommendation has information that is actually useful to you.

It’s up to you to steer your career and job search related information. Follow these links for additional information about asking for recommendations:

Be sure to vet your references.

10 tips to land the best work references

Keep in touch with job references.

Prepare your references for job search success.

photo by .michael.newman.

Time to BranchOut? How to use Facebook to job hunt

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Did you see that TIME Magazine recently named Mark Zuckerberg “Person of the Year?” As Facebook approaches 600 million users, Zuckerburg has been describing Facebook as an “enabler” – a platform where everyday tasks will be done right on Facebook. For example, you can now buy and sell goods, play games or even find a date. These applications, and many more, are changing the way millions of people live their lives. What does this mean for job search?

I’ve written about how you can use Facebook for job seeking. In the spirit of providing information about some growing social networking tools for you to consider adding to your job search arsenal, here are some details about BranchOut, a Facebook application designed exclusively for career networking.

They call themselves “the leading professional networking service on Facebook” and explain, “Once you sign up for the free service you can:

• Create a professional profile

• Search three million jobs and 14,000 internships

• Identify inside connections at the companies you want to work for

Take a look at this brief video:

BranchOut describes the features listed above:

Professional profile – there are some things you share on Facebook that are meant for friends and family, but not recruiters. BranchOut’s profile is 100% professional. It shows where you’ve worked and gone to school, but does not show personal photo albums or status updates. You can import your profile information from LinkedIn or fill out the profile manually.

Job search engine – you can search for open jobs by company name, position, or skill and filter those jobs by location. For example, you could search for IBM, V.P. of Sales, or sales, and sort your results by city.

Inside connections – the most powerful feature on BranchOut is the ability to identify friends and friends-of-friends at the companies you want to work for. Just type in the name of a company, see your 1st and 2nd degree connections at that company, and request an introduction – if necessary – in just one click.

Facebook is projected to grow to one billion users by 2012, giving it an unparalleled social graph. BranchOut considers this social graph its secret weapon. Some of Silicon Valley’s top investors agree – to the tune of a $6M in funding for BranchOut. Kevin Efrusky, the venture capitalist who invested early in Facebook, Groupon, and BranchOut says, “We fundamentally believe it will change jobs and recruiting. If you look at how most people really get their jobs, it is through their real friends.”

So what does that mean for you? BranchOut says:

If you are a job seeker with a Facebook account, there are two reasons why it’s worth checking out. First, as you get a critical mass of BranchOut connections, you’ll be surprised by how many inside connections you already have at thousands of companies. Second, recruiters are starting to search for new hires on BranchOut, so you do not want to be overlooked.

5 things to do on BranchOut today:

1. Sign up for a free account at www.branchout.com

2. Create a professional profile. If you are applying for one job in particular, make sure to target your communication.

3. Invite your Facebook friends to BranchOut. It’s hard to see the power of your inside connections until you have at least 10 BranchOut connections. You can invite people with a single click.

4. Endorse your friends. Tell employers why they are special and request that friends return the favor.

5. Have fun! Play around with the site. Search for jobs, see you inside connections by searching for companies, and check out the leader board to see which of your friends is the most connected.

Please share what you think in the comments. It’s great to keep up with new tools, and important to spend the right amount of time using the ones that offer the most return on your investment. Be sure to let me know if you try BranchOut!

If you know social media is important, but need help, that’s what I’m here for! If you’re ready to hire someone to help you move ahead with your plans, contact me to find out how you can boost your job search – both online and off line. Check out my new book, Social Networking for Career Success, to learn how to use Branchout and other social networking tools to your advantage!

Important LinkedIn change impacts job seekers

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Watching changes in social networking platforms and keeping up-to-date on their ever-changing tools can be a full-time job. My colleague, Jason Alba, author of I’m On LinkedIn, Now What?, posted yesterday about a new development in LinkedIn search that is important for job seekers. He explains that when a non-paying LinkedIn user reviews a third-degree connection’s profile, LinkedIn does not share that person’s name in the headline. (It lists the first name and last initial — see photo below/right). 

It then prompts the user with two choices:

1. To expand your network to enhance your opportunity to connect with the user at a second-degree level. (This would be free, but takes effort.)

2. To upgrade to a paid account that will allow the person to easily find full names for third-degree contacts

This is an interesting development, and Jason notes that it probably is a precursor for other, similar moves by LinkedIn to withhold information and potentially encourage more people to become paid members.

However, at this point, LinkedIn really does not have the upper hand in preventing people from identifying full contact information or names of those whose last names it may withhold. I can (at this point) still see the entire actual profile of my third-degree connections (sans last name in the headline). Any information they share in their profiles (including listing an email address or full name in their profile or Summary section, their personal websites, Twitter accounts, Slideshares, etc.) is still readily available.

My advice to job seekers (and everyone who wants to make it easy — and free) for people to know who you are? Include your full name in your Summary section, link your other professional websites and social networks that have links to your work or work products and consider sharing an email in the context of your Summary.

While it is possible that LinkedIn will become draconian and try to prevent us from sharing this information, or that it will set things up so we cannot easily access other identifying information (such as Twitter account, websites, etc.), that is not the case right now.

Help someone find you by updating your profile. And, consider having your own social resume — a website that you control to share information you want people to know about you. Contact me if you’re interested in owning YourName.com, but could use some help creating a fully operational site that search engines will love and will showcase your best professional information!

Consider using Quora to enhance your professional profile

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If you are a regular reader, you know I recommend using social media (Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)  to enhance your network and expand your reach as a job seeker or entrepreneur.  At a recent social event with other contributors and speakers for Social Media Atlanta’s HR and Recruiting track, I met Douglas Kling, (@DouglasKling), Director of Recruiting at HUNTER Technical Resources. He recommended I look at Quora.com, a network focused on asking and answering questions.

Quora calls itself “A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.” Their goal? “To have each question page become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question.”

Crunchbase notes that Quora was founded in June 2009 and launched in private beta in January 2010:

“One way you can think of (Quora) is as a cache for the research that people do looking things up on the web and asking other people. Eventually, when you see a link to a question page on Quora, your feeling should be: “Oh, great! That’s going to have all the information I want about that.” It’s also a place where new stuff–that no one has written about yet–can get pulled onto the web.”

I found executive recruiter Harry Urschel’s new post in my Google reader while I was writing this post. Harry explains,

“…Quora is unique in the level of professional and expert responses you encounter. Ask a question regarding an Engineering challenge, and it’s not unlikely to get an answer from a Chief Engineer at Motorola or Intel. Ask a question regarding start-ups, and you’re likely to get a response from a Venture Capital expert. Ask questions about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or virtually any other successful site, and you’re just as likely to get an answer from a Senior Executive from one of those organizations as you are from a power user.”

Similar to LinkedIn’s Answers section, there are questions on Quora about a wide array of topics. For example, someone asked: “Are there metrics on how helpful it is to address a user by their first name for account/marketing emails?” One reply was from Ramit Sethi, a NYT bestselling author of I Will Teach You to be Rich.

You may ask a question to the community, or target it to a particular user. Like Twitter, you can choose to “follow” other users and you will have followers as well. When you sign up, Quora offers you the opportunity to link with your Twitter account, and it will automatically follow Quora members whom you follow on Twitter. I found a very small percentage of people I follow on Twitter were also on Quora right now.

How does a site like this help you? In general, it follows the same principle as other social media sites: sharing information and advice in your subject matter area helps you raise your profile. When you answer questions with good information and people begin to turn to you for advice, your digital footprint (how many people know about you online) increases. When more people know about you, your network grows and this improves your chances for learning about (and being recommended for) opportunities — both jobs and entrepreneurial ventures.

Harry noted that Google found his profile and answers and quickly indexed them (therefore indexing his expertise). Since many employers are Googling candidates, having another resource to showcase your knowledge, skills and abilities in your niche topic can be helpful. It’s also possible (as in any social networking site) to build a rapport with an expert or mentor, which may lead to opportunities to contribute to their projects and/or to meet in person.

As someone who has been using Quora for the past few months, Douglas confirms that it is a good use of time and an interesting use of social media. He explained,

“The format allows for interactive discussion amongst subject matter experts on an ever-growing variety of topics. But, it also levels the playing field between the known experts and the unknown experts. The platform allows heretofore unknown experts in a specific space to increase their digital footprint based on the actual quality of the information they provide.”

Check it out: Quora.com. If you sign up, be sure to look for me: http://www.quora.com/Miriam-Salpeter.