Social networking sites are growing rapidly and increasingly taking on a professional networking role. Seems even Face Book and My Space (which is hiring 200 people for its new San Francisco office) are no longer just for gathering a large number of friends you’ll mostly never meet. They are now part of marketing yourself to the work world. And the recruiters are looking.
Or at least that’s what I learned from listening to Marketplace Money’s October 19th show:
New job-seeking tool? It’s the network!
Even though I’ve worked in the tech field and helped hire many people, I have to admit I was shocked to hear one of the guests, a recruiter named Mark Gentry, say this:
Right now, if you sent me a resume in a envelope, there’s little chance that I’ll even open it. And the first thing I’m going to do when I get it is I’m gonna look online to see where you are. And if you’re not online, then I’m going to think, well, why aren’t you online? Are you even current to the market? Do you even understand what’s going on in the world?
Wow! Not only do we need to be savvy about how we contact recruiters, but it looks like we need to be visible to them on the Internet.
Recruiters are using networking sites and other online presence to find out about people who are actively seeking new employment, but they are even more interested in what they call “passive” job seekers, at least according to Misiek Piskorski:
If I have a choice between recruiting somebody who’s already employed, or recruiting somebody who’s unemployed, the sheer fact that they’re already employed gives me a strong signal that they’re basically higher quality.
In fact, he even suggests pretending to be off-market to bolster your chances. It’s a brave new world out there – with just as many judgments and assumptions as before.
It’s basic Psychology 101. People have always been drawn to what’s not available since, by the very nature of someone else having it, we get the feeling it must be better. Not always the case, of course, but still true. It’s just now, in addition to how we present ourselves in person, we have to worry about our online personas.
My advice? Be honest. Not that you need to share every detail. Just make sure you have a good – hopefully positive and dynamic – way of explaining why you are where you are. Even if you’ve been sitting on your couch spending time with Judge Judy!
And when recruiters or potential employers do find us online, we better look good. No pics of us in strange garb or weird things we’ve posted in a moment of madness. Looks like everything we do online can become part of our job application – and, if we’re not careful, what we post can come back to bite us. But on the bright side, it can also help filter out companies you’d rather not work for anyway.
In addition to the mostly social networking sites, there are business networking sites like Ryze and Xing. But far above the rest at the moment when it comes to professional networking of any kind is the rapidly growing LinkedIn. If you don’t know it yet, I think it may be worth a look. It’s a place to connect with school and business acquaintances as well as new people. And according to their website “There are already 15 million professionals in the LinkedIn Network, and that number is growing fast.”
Of course, size is not always everything. Maybe you’d feel lost on LinkedIn and prefer one of the (momentarily) smaller sites. That’s up to you. But I think these professional sites may soon be the best places to do business networking online and are at least worth checking out and becoming familiar with.
Do We Really Need to Do Any of This?
No. You can still get a job the old-fashioned way no matter what any of these recruiters tell you. In fact, I just this week had to send in something by SNAIL MAIL for an extra consulting assignment I’m interested in. There are still many paths to a job. Although most places do require electronic submissions nowadays.
But my best advice is to optimize your chances by opening up your search to all available routes to employment. And, if you even think you might benefit from online networking, it’s worth the effort. Why limit yourself? Even if you’re a bit nervous about the whole thing, you can always just spend some time looking and take it slowly. You never know where it might lead!
And while all this high-tech seek& find is going on, make sure to get your resume in shape. And also remember to prepare a great cover letter that you customize to EACH company you want to work for. There’s nothing more annoying than those form letters where you just change the company name. When employers get them, they think “Could you be any lazier??” I’ll be doing a post on resumes soon, but in the meantime you can find some good, practical info on Susan Ireland’s website.
One note about safe networking: As with any online activity, just remember to be as careful as possible about protecting your identity. I’ve had it happen to me and it isn’t fun. That’s not to warn you away from online networking – it really does seem to be the way of the world. Just play it smart by giving as little personal identifying info as possible.
Oh…and check out who you get contacted by when job opportunities come your way – especially if they ask you for lots of personal details or involve cashing checks for deposed royalty from other countries. (-;
Good luck!
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Really liked this post, Ronnie Ann. I know social networking is important and I’ve personally gotten a lot of benefit from my participation on LinkedIn. But I think there’s no substitute for in-person networking for the job search. I guess we’re learning how to combine the online and in-person worlds to come up with the ideal situation for both employers and job seekers. At least I hope so!
Hi Susan!
Nice to see you. Thanks for the kind words. We are totally in synch on the power of personal networking. As you say, we need to take advantage of all available opportunities to link to others. Some people are introverts and try to do it all online – and for some that’s enough – but for most of us, the chemistry generated by an in-person can get you through doors that seem shut.
But of course online connections can get the process started and lead to meeting interesting people, such as when we first met online.
(Susan has a great website that helps people with their resumes and she also has a wonderful blog called Job Lounge, where I used to help answer questions.)