Recently newspapers were all agog with the story of how a woman lost her job after abusing her boss on Facebook - forgetting that they were friends on the networking website.The woman named "Lindsay" updated her Facebook status with "OMG [oh my God] I HATE MY JOB!!" and went on to accuse her boss. Her boss Brian saw her status and posted a reply. He mocked her for forgetting that they were friends on Facebook and could access everything that she wrote.
Social content website Digg even posted screen shots of the exchange under the headline "Why you shouldn't have your boss on Facebook.
This is one side of the story. Well, here’s the other side of the coin.
Laura Gainor thought creatively and based her job-hunting strategy on a deep understanding of the social websites. Comet Branding, a branding and communications agency, tweeted on Twitter that they were hiring a PR & Social Media Strategist.
Laura tweeted back with her ‘virtual resume’ which she also posted on Slideshare and Twitter. The comments from millions of social media users (who were ‘wow’ed by her creative concept) were so seismic that it forced Comet Branding to sit up and take notice. Laura ended up with a job with the company within three days!
Check out Laura's slideshare presentation that won her her job!
Current college students and job seekers have now revamped their resume, modelled on Laura’s presentation.
How then does one harness the ‘strengths’ of social media to get companies to take notice of one among a sea of job seekers? Here are a few tips.
Identify the prospective company/(ies) that you would like to work for.
Focus on the companies that need someone with your skills. If your strengths are what the company is looking for in an employee, brand yourself as someone who would definitely be happy working there.
The new-age approach is to connect and network with people who are current employees of these companies, using social media tools.
The art of presenting your resume in Word format following the rigid template has been a ritual for so long that it has receded into the background. Employers look out for CVs that stand out not only in ‘has the right skills for the job’ department but also its ability to present an ‘out-of the-box visual thinking’ on the part of the job-seeker to build a powerful personal brand of himself/herself.
A VisualCV also lets you stand out from the crowd. You can include charts and graphs, audio, video and images, share your VisualCV via e-mail or your social networks, all this while establishing a privacy control over its visibility. You can even get your own unique URL.
The most successful job searches come from those who already have strong networks, both online (for example on ‘LinkedIn’, ‘pipl’, ‘peek’, ‘you’ and ‘wink’) and offline. There are millions of blogs in Technorati that one can search through to find someone who works at one any of the prospective companies that one is looking to work for. One can even post a video resume on Youtube, or advertise oneself on Google Ads or Facebook Social Ads.
Establish personal contact with the current employee/(es).
Social media has broken down barriers of communication, encouraging strangers to share a common stage. Send ‘message feelers’ to the target employee you wish to contact, without seeming to intrude upon their time and comfort zone. Do not immediately ask for a job. Connect with them as unobtrusively as possible, tailoring your messages to present your profile. Ask about job opportunities only after a few message sessions are over.
Become a content creator
Pull prospective employers into your world by creating a blog on the web that carries content which defines your proficiency, skills, knowledge and zeal. Soon you will find yourself getting job opportunities that are related to your blog content
Narrow down your job search by subscribing to blogs that carry content related to your job skills
Many blogs list jobs on their job boards. Mashable is one such blog offering social media and technology related job opportunities.
Having said all this, one must remember that a CV is simply a hiring tool, and can act as a springboard to opportunities. A person’s latent skills and strengths and the will and eagerness to succeed as a skilled employee is what finally carries him/her through his/her career.
You either hate it or love it, but Social Media’s omniscience has made it the most memorable technology tool of the century, impacting even the workplace.
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