Job hunting and social networking sites

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 9:34 pm

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Personal branding is more important than ever before when you’re hunting for a job.

Many employers already admit to checking out candidates on the internet as part of the recruitment process.

Having your own blog can be a great way to develop a web presence of your own, as long as you’re happy that the content you post is suitable for potential employers to check out. Comments you post on other blogs or sites also need to be consistent with your professional image as they may well show up in a web search too.

Professional social networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Ecademy, have a role to play in online job hunting too. They provide a web presence and accessible network that job hunters can use to research opportunities and raise their personal profile among a networked audience.

eMarketer has a useful summary of the major professional social networking sites:

The article quotes a SelectMinds research report about how workers use social networking in their professional lives:

Young workers are the most likely to see professional networks as beneficial to their career development, with 72% of GenYers citing such networks as very important, compared with 66% of workers age 30-39 and 61% of workers age 40+.

Based on these findings, employers wanting to be successful in their recruitment efforts need to ensure that they are seen to facilitate and encourage online networking and use of social media tools. Otherwise they risk appearing out of touch, and losing access to the candidates that may be most suitable to their business.

Tags: Blogging, Careers, ecademy, linkedin, Personal development, recruitment, selectminds, Social media
Categories: Blogging, Careers, Personal development, Social media

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