[Note: This is part one of a two-part series. In the next post, I’ll discuss some different tools, like LinkedIn and online portfolios.]
Much has been made about how social media impacts our friendships, educations, and communication skills. In addition to that, however, there is a growing body of knowledge regarding how social networks, blogs, and online forums can help people find employment. I think this is especially true for current students or recent graduates. I have no desire to reinvent the wheel, however: there are many great resources online on this topic already, and I’ll link to a few throughout this post. What I do want to do is describe the impact of social media on your job search through two lenses: the search for information and the perpetual resume.
The Search for Information
Social media allows us to access experts without much effort. We can read blogs (including this one!) in order to find opportunities that we wouldn’t have had before. There are great resources on Twitter that distribute information directly to our timelines or phones. Social networks are becoming forums for discussion on opportunities.
This rapid proliferation of career information allows you to choose when and where you’ll sift through the opportunities available to you. Although I’ve included several links above, there are many others out there, and many are specialized for certain disciplines, so it makes sense to take some time and search for ones that you’ll be able to use.
Of course, these resources are available for everyone, so following them doesn’t necessarily give you an advantage, which brings us to our second point:
The Perpetual Resume
Social media allows you to create an online image of yourself. Previously, the only way to present your identity to most employers was to submit a resume and hope someone read it and liked it. Now, many employers (in certain fields more than others – feel free to weigh in on that in the comments) consider your online presence to be as (and often more) informative than anything they see on a resume. For job seekers, this can be both a positive trend and a negative one.
In the negative sense, it means that you should be careful about the information you put online, especially if it’s easily available to the public. This is old news and something you’ve surely heard before, so I won’t spend more time on it. In the positive sense, however, social media allows you to differentiate yourself from those around you. That gives you the opportunity to impress recruiters for more than the 5 minutes they might spend glancing at your resume.
Do you have questions or insights about how social media impacts your job search? As always, I encourage you to leave comments below or find me on Twitter.
[Author’s note: before we went live with this post, the good folks at Onward State put up an Onward Debates set of posts regarding how Facebook might impact your job search. I like John Tecce’s post.]