What Color Is Your Parachute? (27 page)

PARACHUTE TIP

On his website,
adriandayton.com
, lawyer and Twitter guru Adrian Layton has a series of one-minute videos showing how to set up and manage a Twitter account.

Twitter has become the current rage for businesses seeking new ways to advertise. As the popularity of social media grows, traditional advertising on commercial media has become less effective in driving customers to buy products. Twitter has also become very popular as a site through which one can expand career contacts and clients, job-search, and check on current and potential employees.

If you want to try out Twitter, create two accounts. With friends, you can use a playful screen name or avatar. For career exploration or job search, use your real name and a headshot of yourself in a smart blouse, shirt and tie, or jacket. Tie your career Twitter account to an equally professional email address. First initial and last name, both first and last name, your business name, or your interest sector are all commonly used screen names. Your Twitter account for friends can be tied to a different email address.

Sites with a Business Focus

The job hunt is still very much a people-to-people effort. That’s one reason job boards like Monster, Yahoo’s HotJobs, and CareerBuilder are losing business and being replaced by social networking sites. Social networking relies
on people-to-people contacts.

There are a growing number of social networking sites specifically set up to help people achieve their career and professional goals.
LinkedIn, Jigsaw, and E. Factor are just a few of the most popular sites. There are plenty more, and new ones appear
online all the time.

What’s the Difference?

Business sites call themselves social networking sites, but they are much more formal. LinkedIn, Ryze, and Koda are examples of sites that were created for business networking. Their focus is to help members expand their professional contacts and find potential employers (and employees). Using them can give you a professional presence on the Web.

These “professional” sites aren’t limited to college grads, and they can help you make some connections for your own future. You will want to learn about them as your career interest builds. Always ask friends, people you work with, and your career mentors about new sites for your field or interests.

LOOK UP INTERESTING PEOPLE

Select the top five companies you want to work for or want to know more about and search for people working there through LinkedIn and Technorati blogs. There are also people-search engines such Pipl, PeekYou, and Wink. Every time you hear about a company that interests you, a young entrepreneur, or a new process or procedure that someone has invented, look them up and see what you can find out that may help you make career decisions.

Online Resumes and Supporting Documents

Create a great online resume. Take a look at examples of different online resume forms and models. What will work best to show off your abilities? Get help from experienced people you trust. Post recommendations from teachers,
a favorite camp counselor, your youth minister or other leader of your spiritual community, and former employers or supervisors from volunteer work or internships.

LinkedIn is currently the most popular site for posting about your career. Here are some of the things you can accomplish on LinkedIn:

Use Google Docs to post term papers, science fair projects, thesis papers, Eagle or other scouting projects, articles, senior projects, or other examples of your outstanding work—anything that relates to your career goals. Then link the Google Docs to your LinkedIn profile. If you have made things, created pictures, or written short stories or poetry, post pictures or documents of these as well.

Make a link from
VisualCA.com
to your LinkedIn profile.
VisualCA.com
lets you create and post a resume for free.

Do searches of People, Companies, and Groups. Be sure to join groups that relate to your career interests.

Always Respond!

If you send out a request on LinkedIn or other social networking sites, reply to every single response you get, even if you aren’t interested. Blowing people off is a sure way to get blown off in the future. Those who give you the name of someone to contact are risking their reputation with that person. Regardless of your interest, send at least a brief, polite follow-up message to every name you are given. You just never know when an opportunity will appear.

PARACHUTE TIP

Don’t ask a new contact for a job. Executives and hiring managers at high-profile (and not-so-high-profile) companies are hit up for jobs all the time. Use your messages to learn about a company or what’s happening in a particular field or industry. Introduce yourself and ask questions that will lead to a positive interchange. Once you have a good relationship with your contacts, you can ask more directly about job opportunities—or better yet, they may bring up job opportunities and contacts on their own.

A World of Possibility

The ability to gain career information expanded geometrically with the Internet and expanded many times more with social media. You can use social networking sites to create an online job-search support group, tweet your career action plans to friends, create blogs about your interests, or share your job-search frustrations. To get the most out of using social media sites that are new to you, you will want to go slowly, getting familiar with the sites available. At first, join just one. As you learn more about what you want to find out or accomplish through social networking, you can be more discriminating in the sites you join and spend time on.

Social networking may be the best job-search strategy of the twenty-first century, but the sites you choose and how you use them will determine whether they become an effective career exploration and job-search tool for you. Networking through social media sites is the latest career exploration technique, but something else will replace it eventually. Stay alert for that something else and learn how to use it to boost your career.

IF YOU WANT TO EXPLORE FURTHER…