Mediaboss Marketing

Posted: Sunday, March 11, 2012 1:15 am | Updated: 12:29 am, Sun Mar 11, 2012.

Are you on Facebook? Keeping up with who all is getting married or having a baby? Perhaps looking pictures of a friend's grandkids? Then some wiseacre tells you that Facebook is a good way to find a job?

Can one still have fun and be an effective job seeker using Facebook? Allison Doyle of About.com has doubts. She said, "I used to think that job seekers could still have some fun on Facebook if they were careful about their privacy setting. Now I'm starting to think that unless you are super careful and set your privacy settings so your profile is almost in jail, it can be an issue when you're job seeking." One Facebook user told me, "Trying to job hunt on Facebook will either ruin my fun or lose jobs." Anthony, a dislocated technical support person, said about Facebook job hunting, "No way am I doing that -- too many dangers."

However, it is just as wrong to ignore social media in job seeking. More than half of employers now use Facebook to find employees, and 95 percent use LinkedIn. Twitter is used by 42 percent. A local county park director hired a new secretary who applied using Twitter.

"No one applied the old fashioned way by dropping off a r?sum?," he said.

Here are some tips when using Facebook:

Check your online persona. What picture will a prospective employer get of you online? Google your name using quotation marks. Some are surprised at what they find on line about themselves. What employers learn about you online can be a job killer. If you are using Facebook for fun and job hunting, present yourself as being rather square or PG.

Think of your Facebook profile as your brand. Make sure that information you want to keep private is not out there for the whole world.

Facebook job hunting is really networking. Don't think of it as something that new. It's the same networking that I taught in job search classes for 37 years. Facebook makes it easier to find jobs through the help of friends.

Have fun. Job hunt on Facebook, but be careful.

See the article here:
BOB LANKARD: Using social networking