Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

How to get hired – networking via social media

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Last week, I attended BlogHer 2010 in New York City to speak on a panel about social networking profiles and resumes for job seekers. The JobLab, the brainchild of my friend Laurie Ruettimann, author of PunkRock HR and Cynical Girl, and the co-founder of New Media Services, included advice from many advisors with all types of expertise.

I live tweeted the panel Laurie moderated with Ana Roca-Castro, social media consultant and founder of Premier Social Media; Carmen Hudson, recruiter and founder of tweetajob; and Microsoft Recruiter Heather McGough.

That is Anna, Carmen and Heather in the photo (left to right). (Laurie had to leave before I had a chance to take this picture.)

These are my tweets from their talk. Lots of great advice there for job seekers! Be sure to follow everyone to keep up with their updates going forward!






Do you follow companies on LinkedIn?

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You may already know that LinkedIn is one of the most popular (I might dare to say THE most important) site to optimize if you want to make it easier for employers to find YOU. But, did you know that LinkedIn now has a feature that encourages users to follow companies? Sound a little too much like Facebook’s offer to allow you to “like” a company or business?

Read my post at Job-Hunt.org to learn about the feature and how you can use it to propel your search.


Twitter chats – a great way to expand your network

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If you have not been using Twitter to expand your networking community and broaden your network – why not?

Even if you did not already know that the word  “Twitter” is the fastest growing term to appear in job postings appearing in job boards (per Indeed.com), you should still be using Twitter because it is an amazing place to connect and learn and to grow the number of people who *know* you and are able and willing to help you (with your job hunt or your workout routine).

Thanks to Christina Brown, I recently learned about a resource I had not used before – the Twitter Chat Schedule.  Another resource to find chats is Tweetreports.

A Twitter chat is a time when people who have similar interests hop on Twitter and tweet using a hashtag (a hashtag is a # along with a word or acronym) that helps everyone interested get in on the conversation. I have participated in #JobHuntChat (Monday nights at 10-11 pm eastern), which is a great opportunity to network and learn from career coaches, hiring managers, recruiters and other job seekers. Clearly, I follow the job searching community on Twitter pretty closely, which is how I knew about this chat.

However, I would never have imagined that there was a chat about strength training (#sbgym) or pharmaceutical marketing and social media (#socpharm), a chat for foodies (#SOSfood) and one to discuss fashion and style (#styletalk). The list goes on and on. Of course, there are a lot of chats having to do with social media, and there are several other career oriented chats – #internchat, for example…

The great thing about joining chats and communities pertaining to your hobbies and interests is that it gives you an opportunity to connect with other people about things that have nothing to do with jobs. Just as it is a good idea for job seekers to join a biking club if they enjoy biking, or an art class if artistically talented, Twitter provides an unprecedented way to reach out to new people and to extend your “loose” network – people you would otherwise never meet.

Don’t be shy – take a look at the schedule and find a fun chat…You will be surprised at how generous people are once you exchange a few tweets. The next-door neighbor of the person who may need to hire you may be on Twitter chatting right now!

Haven’t gotten started on Twitter? Read this post that I wrote to encourage job seekers to dive into this amazing network.

photo by joelaz

Don't be like Conan – create your online presence BEFORE you need it!

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I don’t think I am going out on a limb here by assuming that most of my readers are not celebrities! But, you do have something in common with a celebrity; you should reserve YourName.com – even if you don’t plan to use it right now.

If you have been following the whole Conan O’Brian story, you know that NBC’s contract prohibits him from appearing on TV until September. But, did you know that Conan had never even considered having his own online presence before the whole debacle with NBC? It turns out that a squatter owns ConanOBrian.com, and Conan himself was a bit of a luddite when it came to using social media.

The New York Times reported about O’Brian:

Gainfully employed by NBC for some two decades, a personal Web site had hardly been a priority until, well, his tenure as host of “The Tonight Show” screeched to an end in January. Suddenly he needed a new platform. He joined Twitter, and last month, helped by just a few tweets, Mr. O’Brien largely sold out his 30-city comedy tour, which starts on Monday in Eugene, Ore.

(Thanks @Twitter_Tips for that link.)

But, having ramped up quickly, many people now believe that Conan is using social media (Twitter in particular) to sell himself to Fox. (Hat tip @KathyOreilly)

Don’t wait until you need social media to corral the tools you need. Start building your online presence now! A social resume can help you build your brand and share information much more flexibly than other online mediums, such as LinkedIn. Creating your own site and building it into your online home is a project worth starting. Don’t wait until it seems crucial and you are pressed for time.

Just as you don’t want to leave your work address as a primary contact for your LinkedIn profile – since you would be locked out if you lost that email in a layoff, for example – don’t sit back and wait for someone else to take over your online presence.

Not sure what to do? I can help! CONTACT ME to learn about creating an online presence that would make anyone proud!

photo by rkolson

ROI, your job search and social media

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jump3113896395_fc8eb121ff_m“What’s the ROI? How do you know you are GETTING something from it? How much time do you spend?”

These are questions a friend of mine asks when I talk about how much I enjoy using Twitter to connect with colleagues and job seekers. She wants quantified RESULTS. How much money did I earn from it? How many clients do I have because of Twitter? She’s busy. She needs to make every second count.

I’m thinking, “Do you ask about the ROI and decide if you are going to use the phone for your business? Email?” Do you know much MONEY you made last month because you use the phone?

I’m thinking, “If you want to move your business to the next level and doing what you have always done is not working, it is time to try something new. Something new does not always come with any immediate ROI. It builds. Snowballs. When that something new is Twitter, the impact could come in drips – a new client here and there – a retweet or two, or it may come in a wave – a new business opportunity or partner, a new friend.”

We have lots of opportunities to expand our circles. Entrepreneurs have opportunities to share our expertise and sell our services. Similarly, job seekers can dive in, stake a claim online and lay claim to their own “brands.” Are you going to see an immediate “return” on your investment in social networks as a job seeker? Probably not, although you never know. (After all, it only takes one good contact.) Certainly, you can sit on the sidelines, shaking your head and saying, “That will never work. I can’t do that. It takes too much time.” It is your own choice.

My vote? Dive in “with wild abandon,” as my English teacher used to say. (Although, he was talking about great books, not Twitter!) Do something new! Try something different. It’s a chance. A risk that you will be “wasting your time.” Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you have something to offer, get out there and offer it or no one will know.

Just do it. What is stopping you?

If you need help mobilizing your networks and your job search plans, learn more about how I can help you! While you’re at it, be sure to become a fan of Keppie Careers on Facebook…I’d be thrilled to have you as part of the community!

photo by nolly