Mediaboss Marketing

By Eve Tahmincioglu

Figuring out which social networking site is the best for your job search is like trying to decipher a riddle with a constantly changing answer.

When Google+ was introduced, many expected the site to rival Facebook and LinkedIn when it came to its job-hunting potential. But recent data show that the social networking site hasnt lived up to all the hype. Google+ users only spend mere minutes on the site each month, compared to almost eight hours a month on Facebook, comScore reported last week.

And now, an increasing number of people are using Pinterest, the latest social-networking darling; and some are even posting graphic-intensive resumes in an effort to impress employers. The number of unique visitors to the site jumped 56 percent since December, according to comScore, to nearly 12 million.

All this social media ballyhoo has many wondering which site will help them land the job of their dreams.

Once upon a time, career experts pointed to LinkedIn as the only site workers had to be on, but now thats changing. More playful sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Quora, and even Pinterest are turning out to be valuable tools for job-hunters, too, wrote George Anders, author of The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else," in a Harvard Business Review post last week.

If the alphabet soup of social media choices has you wanting to shun them all, think again. Employers are increasingly using social media to connect with applicants. The most recent data show 56 percent of the organizations currently use social networking websites when recruiting for potential jobs, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), which surveyed nearly 550 HR professionals via email last year. Thats up from 34 percent in 2008, the last time the survey was conducted.

Where recruiters are going to find you out in cyber space, however, is a moving target.

Among the employers SHRM polled there are three top choices:

But a survey put out last month by The Creative Group, an interactive advertising company, of advertising and marketing executives found that if they had to pick one social networking, 56 percent would choose Facebook, followed by LinkedIn and Google+.

View original post here:
For job hunters, social networking options abound