Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

How having your own website helps you

By

I always think one of the most frustrating aspects of job search is believing you’ve “done everything,” but aren’t finding an opportunity. I’ve never met a job seeker who actually has “done everything,” though, which I think is good news! Most people are very focused on out-dated tools and spend a disproportionate percentage of their time doing the same thing, over and over, without different results.

This month, the Career Collective (a community I co-coordinate with my colleague Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter) addresses the question of how to use social media in a job search. (Please click through to the links I’ll add soon at the bottom of this post to the other responses to this question.)

There are so many great ways to use social media in your search, most of which I address in my book, Social Networking for Career Success.

There’s no doubt social media tools offer an underutilized opportunity to:

  • Help you connect with new people and keep track of contacts.
  • Easily learn new things.
  • Share your expertise and expand your brand.

LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all provide easy-to-use, free tools to get-in-touch (and keep-in-touch) with people who may be interested in learning more about you and what you have to offer. However, I think the best, and most important tool the majority of job seekers do not have is a personal website, or social resume.

Why have your own website?

  • Hiring managers will Google you. What will she find?
  • A personal site is a way to control how your name appears online.
  • Statistics show your online presence matters, and that employers are looking for personal and professional data about you.
  • NOT putting up your own site only gives people an incentive to look deeper in the web for information about you. Take a look at these sites to learn what the “deep web” knows about you: pipl.com, Polymeta.com.
  • Managing a site is important for career insurance and professional development. Showcasing your expertise online (even if it is in a new field) helps demonstrate what you have to offer, even when you aren’t looking for a job. An online presence can grow and change along with your career and help attract people to learn more about you. This could result in opportunities to speak at conferences or events, or even invitations to apply for jobs down the road.
  • Having a website suggests you have some technical savvy and understand how to use online tools to communicate. That, in and of itself, is an important skill many employers value. It’s known as “social proof.” You may say you know about technology on your resume, but actually using it to showcase your own information goes a long way to prove you have what employers want.

Especially if you are transitioning to a new job or an experienced job seeker who needs to overcome age discrimination, having an up-to-date online presence and maybe even a viable blog helps show prospective employers you’re willing to learn and are perfectly capable of keeping up with technology.

In my book, I suggest starting out using WordPress.com to try out an online presence. It’s a great resource, and it’s free. However, there are limitations to free tools — not the least of which is you don’t really “own” that online real estate. With some know-how, or an investment in someone who does know how, you can have your own site. If you’re lucky, you can even have “YourName.com,” which will help you rank high for your name in search and help direct people to find the information you want them to find about you.

I hope you’ll visit my site, GetASocialResume.com, to learn more about what you’ll want to include in your social resume. If you don’t want to figure out how to do this yourself, I can help. With a relatively small investment, I can offer you an online presence you’ll be proud to use as a hub for your social media activity, and help you create a site to tell a compelling story describing your background and experiences.

The following are posts from other Career Collective members answering this question

Make Your Career More Social: Show Up and Engage, @WalterAkana

You 2.0: The Brave New World of Social Media and Online Job Searches, @dawnrasmussen

How to Get a New Job Using Social Media, @DebraWheatman

Social Media: Choosing, Using, and Confusing, @ErinKennedyCPRW

How to Use Social Media in Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman

Updating: A Social Media Strategy For Job Search, @TimsStrategy

Your Career Needs Social Media – Get Started, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland

We Get By With a Little Recs from Our Friends, @chandlee

Expat Careers & Social Media: Social Media is Potentially 6 Times more Influential than a CV or Resume, @expatcoachmegan

Social-Media Tools and Resources to Maximize Your Personalized Job Search, @KatCareerGal

Job Search and Social Media: A Collective Approach, @careersherpa

Social Media: So what’s the point?, @DawnBugni

Tools that change your world, @WorkWithIllness

HOW TO: Meet People IRL via LinkedIn, @AvidCareerist

Effective Web 2.0 Job Search: Top 5 Secrets, @resumeservice

Jumping Into the Social Media Sea @ValueIntoWords

Sink or Swim in Social Media, @KCCareerCoach

Social Media Primer for Job Seekers, @LaurieBerenson

 

 

What LinkedIn’s “apply” button may mean for job seekers

By

There’s been a lot of buzz in the past week or so about LinkedIn’s “apply” button. Mashable reported LinkedIn will launch a button to allow users to easily apply for jobs using their LinkedIn profiles as an effective “resume” later this month. Dan Schawbel called for this being one more nail in the resume’s coffin and asserted job boards are on their way out as a result. There’s lots of push back from the recruiting community on the topic and, many of us believe the resume is not going out of style, but I think there is a more important question to consider for job seekers.

Does “one button” applying help or hurt your chances for a job? Easy isn’t always the best approach for job seekers. I would anticipate a one-button solution (eliminating those pesky “hoops” job seekers usually need to jump through) will result in many more candidates applying for jobs. Just a guess here, but I am also guessing it would appeal to more UNqualified candidates. I’m not sure if that’s useful for employers or job seekers, but it’s sure to feed into an applicant tracking system to help make it easy for employers to scan and screen applicants.

The question of what it all means for job seekers still sticks out like a sore thumb. One of the most important things to do when applying for a job online is to target your materials to match the employer’s needs. How you apply for a job can be the difference between getting a job or not. It’s crucial that your application materials make a case for you. This may be tricky for people applying for various types of jobs. It is much easier to tweak a resume and application than it is to worry about what LinkedIn profile is up. (Although, of course, the LinkedIn profile is always a factor, when it is the clear leading indicator when you apply, it can make applying more complicated for career changers or those career change expert Marci Alboher calls “slashers.” She defines “slashers” as people who have multiple career interests and expertise and “can’t answer the question ‘What do you do?’ with a single word or phrase.”)

Donna Svei points out that reports say applicants will have a chance to edit their profiles when they apply, but as she explains, it’s unclear right now if the changes would be permanent on the LinkedIn profile or not.

These are all important details, and it will be absolutely necessary for job seekers to remember that “one button” applying may shorten the process, but it’s not an invitation to apply for jobs without foresight and focus.

If companies do start to receive a lot of unqualified or un-targeted applicants, we may see them preferring to find candidates from other sources. In fact, Career Columnist for The Seattle Times (NWjobs), Paul Anderson recently shared a column describing the fact that some employers advertise and collect applications from places even though they DON’T expect to hire applicants from that pool! A little crazy, right? Paul clarified for me they put out those feelers “just in case” they don’t get a good pool from their preferred sources.

Job seekers should keep an eye on news about easier ways to apply for jobs. If you want to land an opportunity to interview for the job, though, don’t focus on the “it’s easy” aspect — keep an eye on the prize and spend time needed to tweak and target.

Have you seen my new book — Social Networking for Career Success? Take a look if you want ideas about how to get your job search (or business) going in the right direction!

photo by Jim’s outside photos

How many votes is your social network worth? (Help a friend!)

By

One of the best things about social media is it gives job seekers an opportunity to pick an area where they can excel — it’s different for every job seeker. Some are great using video, others may want to blog. Many more can share expertise via Twitter in 140 characters or less and connect with potential colleagues and contacts.

At the same time, some employers are using social media and thinking “outside of the box” when it comes to hiring. A case in point, a friend recently let me know his sister, Amy Bailey, is in the running for an awesome job at HopScout. They are looking for 5 editors to write guest posts, test products and be community managers of sorts. They also want their editors to be buyers and attend trade shows. The job is targeted to stay-at-home parents who want a little work and money on the side.

Instead of advertising and asking for resumes, they require applicants to post a video on Facebook and are running an online vote to select finalists. It makes a lot of sense, as it not only tests video skills (part of the job), but also the applicants’ ability to leverage the social web. It’s kind of a “social proof” job interview screen. People may say, “I have this many friends or “likes” on Facebook” or “X people follow me on Twitter,” but it comes down to actually calling a community to action to secure votes and convince people to take a minute to vote! People who can do that can also probably get the job done!

I asked Amy what she thinks about the process from the job-seeker’s side:

This method of interviewing people puts a minor barrier to entry, which is a great way to weed out applicants. It’s a lot easier to send off a resume that you’ve brushed up than to learn how to make a video you’d be willing to publish. They’ve received over 150) submissions so far, and if they’d asked for resumes, I’m guessing that number could easily be much higher.

The first stage of this process focuses on the number of votes your video gets, though other factors (creativity, innovation, fair play, quality of content and sense of humor) may be considered as well.  I see the point of focusing on popularity because on one hand, this is an e-marketing job that relies on building a social network. At the same time, the votes aren’t necessarily coming from anyone from the target market of the site.  However, Hopscout’s Facebook page has netted over 10,000 likes in a little over a week, primarily due to this contest, so it seems to be a successful marketing campaign regardless of the outcome.

I’m impressed that they’re so optimistic – that before the contest started, they believed 25% of their top-voted videos would have been made by people who can get the job done – people who can write, appeal to an audience and give fair (and fun) evaluations of products. I think that took a lot of faith on their part, but I think it was a smart move – there are some great videos and some very creative moms and dads, and hopefully that will translate into the kind of employees they’re looking for. If they hire me, their plan definitely worked. 😉

If my video is one of the top 20 videos (I could really use your support!), then I’ll get a chance to review a product and show them that I’m worth hiring. They’ll hire five people from this second stage of the interview process.

Consider this…You never know when you’ll need to – or want to – leverage a community to help you land a job. You may never be in a situation where you need actual votes via Facebook to get a position, but when you think about it, isn’t any endorsement or referral kind of like a “vote?” I believe the biggest benefit to social networking is the ability to grow your network and expand the number of people who know and like you well enough to care if you get a job or a gig. The more people out there rooting for you, the more likely you are to score the opportunity you want.

I hope you’ll vote for Amy, and leverage your networks to see if you can win her some votes. Why? Because she’s my friend’s sister, and I’d love to help her out. (A bonus? She’s actually perfect for this job based on her credentials!)  In the meantime, think about your own network and what “votes” you need to get to land your next gig!

Please vote for Amy HERE.

How LinkedIn can help you find a job or a gig

By

I’ve been writing regularly on my book’s site, Social Networking for Career Success, sharing some tips and highlights included in the book and thanking the many contributors who share their advice and expertise in the manuscript.

I believe LinkedIn is the first social network all job seekers and entrepreneurs should use and master.

Here are links to recent posts about LinkedIn on my book’s site:

Craig Fisher, who provided some LinkedIn tips about using keywords in chapter 5, allowed me to highlight advice from one of his recent blogs about using LinkedIn.

Tim Tyrell-Smith, manager of a LinkedIn Success Story group, and Timothy Puyleart, who runs a very successful, niche LinkedIn group, offered excellent advice about the advantages and challenges of creating LinkedIn groups. Learn more in the post highlighting LinkedIn groups.

Stay tuned for more links to posts with social networking advice thanking contributors to Social Networking for Career Success. Take a look at the entire list of contributors and links to their blogs and Twitter accounts.

photo from LinkedIn Press Center

How to make it easier to find you online

By

Job seekers often hear how important it is to make it easy to find information about you online. Why? A Cross-Tab research study, Online Reputation in a Connected World, points out:

  • 75 percent of HR departments are expected to research candidates online
  • 89 percent of hiring managers and recruiters review candidates’ professional online data
  • 86 percent of employers believe a positive online reputation influences their hiring decisions—and nearly 50 percent say the influence is “to a great extent” and they expect it to increase

Further proving how important it is to be discoverable online is an ExecuNet Inc. research study, 2010 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report:

  • 90 percent of search-firm recruiters regularly Google candidates to help draw a complete picture of that individual—up from 75 percent in 2005

If you have a common name, it may be difficult to distinguish yourself online. About 2,000 people on LinkedIn share their name with someone on the FBI’s most wanted list, says James Alexander, founder of Vizibility.com, a company that creates tools to help professionals and companies stand out on the Web.

Read the rest of the post on my U.S. News blog….

photo by dunkr