Career Networking Sites
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LinkedIn
(http://www.linkedin.com):
o LinkedIn is a networking tool that allows you to create an online profile. Your profile is kind of like a resume but even more detailed, because you can also include online job recommendations from others in your network, lists of contacts, links to your web site or Twitter profile, updates, and a photo of yourself.
o After you build your LinkedIn profile, the next step is to invite other people on LinkedIn to be your contacts. A contact can be a friend, classmate, relative, former or current boss, former or current subordinate, casual acquaintance, or anyone who has a LinkedIn profile and is willing to become your contact (which also means you become theirs). Since so many people have LinkedIn profiles, it is relatively easy to build a contact list. LinkedIn also has a search tool that allows it (with your permission) to access your e-mail address list (if you have a web-based e-mail program such as Yahoo! or G-mail) and see who in your list is already on LinkedIn, so that you can click a button to send them automatic invitations to become a contact (connect their profile to yours).
o Here’s a great way to use LinkedIn to get a job:
1. Log in to your profile;
2. Click on the People button to view the dropdown list of other choices;
3. Click on Companies;
4. Type the name of a company that has a job you want;
5. Check to see if anyone in your network (1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree contacts) works for that company.
6. If anyone in your network has the company name as part of their online profile, they will appear in the results list. If this person is, for example, a 2nd degree contact, you will see who your mutual contact is with this person so you know whom to talk to for an introduction to this person, or for your mutual contact to hand off your resume to this person. This gives you a great leg up in getting that job! After all, if you were an employer choosing between two equally qualified candidates, would you feel more comfortable hiring a stranger or a friend of a friend?
7. You can search for jobs directly using a similar approach: Instead of clicking on Companies above, click on Jobs, then type keywords related to the job you’re looking for. If you find job openings that people have posted on their personal or company LinkedIn profiles, you will also find links to people in your network who work at the particular companies where the jobs are located.
8. LinkedIn works so well because a person’s network consists of first, second, and third degree contacts. In other words, if I have 50 contacts, and each of those contacts has 50 contacts, and each of those contacts has 50 contacts, this means that I have access to 50x50x50=125,000 people in my network! Someone is likely to be associated with the company you want to hire you. (To find exactly how many people are in your network, click the Contacts link at the top of your profile and choose Network Statistics). For example, in my own LinkedIn profile I have 107 first degree connections (people I know personally who have all agreed to be my contact on LinkedIn) and over 1,320,300 people in my network!!
o Digital
Trends emphasizes the importance of LinkedIn as a career networking and job
search tool: “LinkedIn is now so elephantine and so seemingly necessary in the
business world that few people of importance don’t utilize it.”
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Twitter
(http://www.twitter.com):
o Twitter is a social networking tool allowing people to post random thoughts/status updates during the day so that the person’s “followers” can read them. Posting one of these updates is called “tweeting.” I can follow anyone’s tweets I want: for example, Barack Obama’s (yes, he is on LinkedIn, as are many other politicians and celebrities) or my friend Jane’s. I can also share someone else’s tweets with my own followers by clicking the “Retweet
” button next to a tweet. When I log in to my twitter account, I will be able to read the tweets of those I am following, on my main page.o Mashable.com mentions other ways to use Twitter to get a job:
o Use a professional-looking avatar (profile picture).
o Go here to find a professional-looking template to use as your Twitter background.
o This page lists 50 people job-seekers should follow on Twitter.
o For more basic information about Twitter, go here.
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Facebook (http://www.facebook.com):
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http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/jobhunting/sec_page.php?sub_item=019