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Top 10 Benefits of Using Twitter for a Job Search

Twitter is growing exponentially. Employer’s are using Twitter and other social sites to research job applicants. But still, few job seekers have no idea how to use Twitter for a job search.

One of the primary drivers of twitter growth has been the ability to share and find information.  Savvy Job seekers can use Twitter and this real-time information feature to not only research companies, their products, and services, but also build credibility and influence by providing followers with good, relevant, and interesting news, articles, and insights.

Doing this in your chosen profession and industry can help you build a substantial number of followers who can be leveraged into direct contacts within companies, which are imperative when you are searching for a job.

Twitter can build credibility and authority during a job search.

Top 10 Benefits of using Twitter in a job search:

  1. Differentiate yourself from other job seekers, while building your credibility and authority with industry contacts, thought leaders, as well as employee s, inside companies you are interested working with..
  2. Prove your industry experience and expertise, based on your twitter posts, your followers, your twitter friends, and your retweets. Your resume can’t do this!
  3. Directly connect with senior management, employees, and owners of the companies that you are interested in working with, while building rapport and credibility, before you ask about job openings.
  4. Build, Grow, and Maintain Relationships with your personal network and referral networks; including, current and former co-workers, clients, vendors, and other industry contacts.
  5. Add value to your Personal Brand distinguishing you as a Subject Matter Expert, with connections to other industry thought leaders.
  6. Keep your connections up-to-date on your job search progress.
  7. Intimately know the companies you are interested in working with, through researching their products, their industry, their management, and their employees. You will not only gain critical information about the companies, but you will be able to make a much better decision about whether you want to work there or not.
  8. Research the companies and publish your findings. This is basically using your job search time to learn about the companies and industries, but instead of just keeping the information to yourself, you publish it, making it available to others, including the people who are going to hire you. There are several stories of job seekers that were hired just because they knew more about social media and what was being said about the company than people inside the company. Publishing your finding, not only shows that you know a lot about the company, but that you are serious about your intent to work with them.
  9. It’s Easy! Twitter only allows 140 characters, so you don’t have to spend an hour or two writing a blog posts, or racking your brain to find something to write. Finding and posting or retweeting relevant and interesting articles, tips, tricks, news, and information is easy to do and very rewarding. Not only do you learn about the companies you want to work for, but you also learn about all aspects of their industry, their management, etc. This is critical information to know if you want to find you Dream Job.
  10. It’s Fun!

If you are using Twitter or other social media tools in your job search, please comment below! I’d love to hear what kind of results you are achieving. Did you find a job through Twitter? Let me know by emailing me at jonathan at jonthanduarte.com

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Ignore Social Networking during a job search at your own peril!

45% of Employers are using Social Networking sites to research job seekers

CareerBuilder recently polled 2,667 hiring managers about their use of social networking in the recruiting process. The results of the poll are something that every job seeker, no matter what level of experience or industry should come to understand.

The job search rules have changed. The process of simply applying with a resume, no longer exists. Employers have access to the social networking sites. They know how to use them, and they are making hiring decisions based on them. Realize this now, and use it to your advantage, or perish!

Here are some of the results of the poll, and my comments:

45% of the employers in the survey admitted to using social networking sites like LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, Myspace.com, and twitter.com to research job seekers in their recruiting processes. Another 11% stated they would start this practice this year. In total, that’s 56% of employers… a majority!

Personally, I think this number is much higher, especially if you consider some of the recent statistics from Linkedin and that fact that the CareerBuilder study apparently did not include staffing firms and executive recruiters.

In a recent post, LinkedIn recently stated that 40% of Fortune 100 companies have paid LinkedIn Recruiter accounts, meaning these firms are paying LinkedIn to provide better tools for searching, researching, and communicating with job seekers.

Additionally, back in May 2009, LinkedIn stated they had over 500,000 Human Resources and Recruiters as members. And finally, for that last 3 years, “Internet Sourcing” has become a very lucrative training business for consultants who teach employers how to find and track down candidates online.

Employers, staffing firms, and executive recruiters are using LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to make hiring decisions.

So, what are employer’s doing on these sites? What are they looking for? And what should job seekers be on the lookout for?

35% DID NOT hire a candidate because of what they found online.

Top 7 Reasons Employers Disqualified candidates:

  1. Posting provocative or inappropriate photographs or information. Get rid of the non-professional stuff on your MySpace and Facebook sites. If your friends are posted dumb things, defriend them. It’s your career and job at stake. Your true friends will get over it.

  2. Posting content about the candidate drinking or using drugs. Clean up your act!

  3. Bad mouthed their previous employer. Remember what you put online will get out there. Employers will not consider candidates who show traits of insubordination. Granted, social networking isn’t about the employer, but your attitude is what employers are viewing. Having a bad attitude will probably follow you, regardless of the employer.

  4. Lied about qualifications. Back to square 1, make sure your profile and resume match, including experience, skills, time lines, etc.

  5. Shared confidential information from a previous employer. Why would you do this anyways? And then make it public? Be careful of what you say, to whom and when.

  6. Showed poor communication skills. While this might seem odd, I have seen a lot of this when visiting a job seekers twitter profile, and then their blog, I find lots of typos, grammatical issues, and a clear lack of proper grammar. (Believe me, I’m no writer either, but check what you publish.)

  7. Another 14% of employers disqualified candidates because the candidate used “text messaging” short-hand, like smiley faces and GR8 (great) on their applications or in emails. Remember your audience and medium. Email and your job application require professionalism, not short-hand.

Top 7 Reasons Employer’s Hired a candidate after a social screen.

  1. Profile provided a good feel for the candidate‚Äôs personality and fit. This might seem a little odd, but this is one of the biggest reasons employer’s are doing social screens in the first place. They want to minimize the risk of a bad hire. If you have a social footprint that matches the companies brand, that’s a good thing. If you act professionally online, employer’s believe you will act the same way when working for them.

  2. Social profiles matched professional qualifications. Again, make sure what is publicly available about you matches your resume. Another hint would be to “google yourself”. Type your name into Google Search, and see what comes up.

  3. Candidate was creative. Your social profiles will in fact show this.

  4. Candidate showed strong communication skills.

  5. Candidate was well-rounded. Again, back to the “personality”. Employers are looking to see what you do, and how you act in a social setting, even if it is online.

  6. Others posted good references about the candidate.

  7. Candidate received awards and accolades.

What to do next?

If you are searching for a job, and you are concerned about the above, the good news is this… You can do something about it. It doesn’t take long, and it’s pretty easy:

  1. Get on LinkedIn, complete your profile, and make sure that your profile matches what your resume says.
  2. Get on Facebook, and if you are already on Facebook, make sure you delete any non-professional images, notes, wall posts, comments, and anything else that might cause an employer to discredit you.
  3. Get on Twitter, and start Tweeting about your job search and your professional expertise.
  4. Google yourself, to know what employers are going to find out about you.

While there are a lot of other things you can be doing, the above 4 steps are basic, yet critical

Additionally, don’t let any of the statistics above scare you. Profiles and social networking sites give you a lot of control over the content and messages. You can block users, delete messages, etc. But you must be vigilant!

In summary, remember that what you put online can be re-published instantly and ubiquitously. So, if you don’t want your mother to read it on the front of the New York Times, don’t put it online. It doesn’t matter if it’s your Facebook page or tweeting with friends, we are talking about your career and your personal brand.

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Jobing buys Cheezhead for SEO move

Has Cheezhead lost his mind, selling to Jobing.com?

Yesterday, September 9, 2009, Jobing.com announced the acquisition of the Cheezhead Group, with infamous HR blogger, Joel Cheesman.

Why would a Aaron Matos, CEO of Jobing.com, want to buy a notoriously outspoken blogger?

While the answer might seem strange, but Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is probably the #1 reason.

Over the years, Jobing.com has been purchasing a lot of undervalued or distressed recruiting websites, including; Employocity, ColoradoJobs, JobSummit, the California Online Job Network, Rhinomite, Careers Colorado, LocalCareers Network, CanJobs.com, and WorkMetro.

Most of these properties were small and barely profitable websites, but they all had one thing in common, hundreds of very valuable job search related domain names.

OLD Jobing Strategy = Defense

In the past, Jobing’s purchasing of other websites and domain names seems to have been a defensive strategy. Buy the companies and domains, do some limited integration, but generally keep others from acquiring and competing on a local basis.

That strategy might finally be over.

New Strategy- Low cost Job Seeker and Employer Acquisition

Jobing now controls one of the largest collections of the most valuable job search related domain names. The value of these domain names has yet to be exploited to its full potential, from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) standpoint.

Joel Chezman is one of the few people who could unlock the value in the thousands of domain names that Jobing.com now owns. Bringing Joel on board to integrate the SEO strategy is a great move.

Each month, there are over 150 million job related searches originated on Google.com. The majority of these searches lead job seekers to the largest job boards, who have made significant investments in search engine optimization (seo).

The top ranked career sites are using search to generate upwards of 50% of their job seeker traffic. Meanwhile, search is one of the lowest cost of job seeker and employer acquisition models.

SEO is a Zero Sum Game – Jobing stands to Win, and Big!

Search engine optimization is also a zero sum game, by integrating the domain into a search engine optimization network of job seeker eyeball-grabbing domains, Jobing could quickly pull millions of job seekers from competing national and local job boards. There are only 10 Top 10 positions, and the Top 1 ranked position can receive as much as 65% of the search traffic.

Currently, Jobing relies on one of the most expensive job seeker acquisition models, utilizing a lot of offline and outdoor advertising. Additionally, outdoor advertising attracts a blue collar labor workforce, while online advertising and marketing, including both SEO and SEM, attract a white collar workforce.

Bringing in a recruiting specific search engine optimization strategist to integrate and leverage thousands of highly valuable domain names makes a lot of sense. If this is Jobing’s strategy, which it seems to be, Jobing could expand nationally much quicker, with not only lowering its cost of marketing to job seekers and employers, but also doing this at the direct cost of its competitors.

In the end, I think this is a real win for Jobing and Cheesman.