**This is a guest post written by Joshua Waldman author of “Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies.” 

Why are we even talking about social media in the context of job search?  Simple!  Recruiters are using social media and recruiting to find talent. In fact, several surveys in the last few years point to a very high percentage organizations recruiting through social media.  Adding to this trend, LinkedIn’s API has now made it even easier for recruiters to access fresh talent via some powerful recruiting software tools.  My philosophy is that if you want to make a sale, step into the shoes of your customer.  Translation: if you want to land a job, understand how recruiters do their jobs. Then adjust your job search strategy so that you pop up on their radar.

Tips for LinkedIn Job Seekers to Stand Out

The shift here is that LinkedIn’s own search capabilities are being used less as more advanced technologies emerge, making recruiting much easier for professionals. If you are still keyword packing, get with the program. LinkedIn is a whole different animal. Keyword packing and most of those SEO tricks for your LinkedIn profile are yesterday’s news.

There are three main elements that you now need to optimize for if you plan on using Linkedin for your job search. And they are much different then before as LinkedIn has and will continue to go through dramatic changes.

1. For the Passive Search: Bigger Social Network IS Better

When you look at recruiting software such as Bullhorn Reach, you’ll notice that primed candidates pop up based on the user’s own social network. This means that if you are connected to that recruiter through social media, and you just lost your job, added a hot job title, or otherwise did something to your profile, you’ll pop up.  Don’t believe me? Watch this video and pay particular attention to minute 1:50.

Many of these advanced social media recruiting tools deliver search results for the recruiters based on that person’s individual network. Yep. Essentially, if you are not in a recruiter’s network, you are not likely to show up in search results. So how many recruiters do you have in your network?

2. Update Your Location for Visibility in LinkedIn Recruiting

Another essential factor in whether or not you come up in a recruiter’s search is your LinkedIn profile location. It would be a mistake to be too general (like “USA”), but it would also be a mistake to enter your current location if you want to move.

If you are a LinkedIn job seeker looking for a position in Nevada (god knows why!) and you live in North Carolina (okay, lots of sun too), you need to put your DESIRED location in your LinkedIn profile – even though you don’t currently live there.  Think about how a job board works. You are asked two things: where you want to look for the job and what you want to do. Right?  This is exactly how recruiters use their specialized software. They get hired to fill positions, or they are corporate recruiters and are looking for local talent. So they use zip codes to filter names from their list.  Be sure your LinkedIn location settings are where you want them to be.

 3. LinkedIn Skills to Pay the Bills

Did you remember getting an email from LinkedIn a while ago asking you to fill in your Skills for your profile? I’ll bet you did, but you probably deleted it with your spam. That was a mistake. Here’s why: “Skills” in LinkedIn are set up like tags. You can have multiple skills to tag yourself with, but you can have only one or two industries and only one job title. Many software packages include a skills filter for their LinkedIn searches.

Why? Because when a company or hiring manager talks to a recruiter, they aren’t always writing clear job descriptions. Often, recruiters have to write or re-write the job description or even guess at what type of person is needed to fulfill a role. So all they have to work with is a list of random skills and they need to go out there and find people with those skills.  Remember in the movie Taken, with Liam Neeson? When they kidnap his daughter, he says, “I have a very particular set of skills, skills I’ve acquired over a very long career.” Well, go to your LinkedIn profile and tell the world what very particular skills you have acquired over your career.

Joshua Waldman is a guest blogger at Blogging4Jobs and is an author of Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies, is a career advancement specialist helping people use social media to go from good jobs to great careers. When he’s not helping executives become sought-after authorities at Corporate Warriors, he’s blogging on CareerEnlightenment.com or working out at the gym. Check him out on Twitter @joshuawaldman. 

Photo Credit Last.fm.

Most of us will agree that the most talented people are already in good jobs and doing well. Passive job seekers are just that, passive and not actively looking, that is why sources like Linkedin are such good sources to find talent but just because I can find someone on Linkedin doesn’t mean I can covince them to come and work at the company where I work.

Many recruiters receive training on how to source or find candidates but the sourcing bit is the less difficult part in our opinion. Selection and filtering out the most appropriate person is easier than convincing them to work for you or a third party.

That is often the trickier part of the process. But for the sake of this post let’s look at three ways in which we can effectively source talent using social media and in a future post we wll look at convincing them.

Listen to relevant conversations.

Identify the topics that your target talent are discussing in the real world and search online for the places where those topics are being discussed. Ifyou find relevant conversations you often find relevant talent. Good people can be found talking online or offline about what matters to them. There are very cheap or even free tools like Netvibes, Sprout Social or Google Blogsearch that will allow you to find the conversations and where you find the right conversations you will often find the right people.

Talent Communities

If you find that the conversations your target talent are interested in are not being facilitated online, then it may well be worth your time facilitating a space for those conversations to happen online. Set up an online space like a blog or talent community hub and also set up the relevant social channels. Incentivise your existing talent to supply relevant content to the online group. Regular and relevant content can help generate conversations and conversations are a critical component of a community. Building a community is a skill that requires an appropriate plan and process, so do seek out a good online community builder for some advice before going down this path. If you can get this right then it’s like having the goose that lays the golden egg from a candidate perspective.

Online word of mouth referrals

We all know that from a performance and length of service perspective the best hires often come from recommendations and referrals from your existing performers. If you put online referral tools in place that allow existing talent to share job opportunities then this is a much cheaper way for direct and agency recruiters to source talent. Use Add This or Share It buttons to your jobs on your site or use more advanced tools like Select Minds, Rolepoint or Jobvite for a more structured and measurable way of sharing jobs online. Betfair, the UK head quartered online betting company, use this method for hiring staff and as a result they have dramatically improved their referral scheme and allowed them to source cheaper yet higher quality candidates by leveraging their existing talent and their contacts.

Photo Credit The Digerati Life. 

Colm Hannon is a guest blogger for Blogging4Jobs and is also the Managing Director of eSocialMediaUK. You can contact him On Twitter at  @ColmHannon or colm.hannon@esocialmedia.co.uk

A resume will get you through the door, but the interview is what will get you hired.

You might be the BEST at the JOB you are interviewing for, but if you don’t master communicating that in an interview, you may not get the job. Interviewing is a skill that can be learned… here is what you need to know to do it right.

• Apply to the right jobs.  You wouldn’t go on a date with someone who is totally wrong for you, so why would you want to interview for a job that isn’t a good fit? As tempting as it is to go for the highest paying or status jobs you can find, you should really only apply to jobs you know you are qualified for. Also, know what YOU want out of a job. This way you can make sure that the jobs you interview for are ones you actually want and can get.

• Know your stuff – and stop studying for the interview like it’s a test.  An interview is a conversation, not a test. So Don’t try to predict what will be asked. If you are applying to the right jobs, you really DO already know everything you need to know to talk about what you can bring to the job. Do practice a few things you KNOW you want to talk about related to your experience and definitely research the company so you know what they do, but don’t practice canned answers like you are playing a part.

• Answer the question.  Pay attention to what they are telling you during the interview and what questions they are asking. If they ask how much you grew business in Q4 of last year in your current role and you start talking about what you plan to to do when you are hired, it may seem as though you can’t focus on the task at hand. Keep answers focused and to the point and know when to stop talking and just listen – he who talks the most thinks the interview went the best…let it be them!

• Ask what success looks like.  “What are your expectations for the person in this role?”  “What impact are you looking for someone to have?”  Asking them to talk more about what they are looking for not only shows you are serious, it also may give you important clues on how to represent your experience to help them see you are the perfect person for the job.

• Back your answers up with specific examples.  Know your numbers and how to use them… If you are asked what your strategy would be to increase awareness of their brand, be ready to talk about how you might use a similar strategy to that was successful in your current position: that killer ad campaign you launched resulted in 89% growth in profits year over year.  Quantifiable success goes a long way to proving you are more than just talk – you get results.

• Set expectations.  An interview is not a one way conversation…don’t be afraid to ask them questions that will help you both have a clear idea about timelines. Ask them for guidance in terms of when you can hear back, how far along they are in the interview process, and if they have a date in mind by which they need to hire someone.

Also, let them know you plan to follow up – ask them something like “Hey, if I don’t hear from you in 2 weeks, would it be OK if I check in to see how things are going?”
Questions like these help you manage your follow up, and make sure you don’t leave still waiting for the phone to ring two months later or worse..turning into a total stalker.

Wendy Doulton is a guest blogger for Blogging4Jobs.  She’s a corporate headhunter and executive career coach who works in LA.  For more tips, catch the re-airing of her new reality television special called “The Headhuntress” on Bravo TV.  You can also follow Wendy on Twitter at @theheadhuntress or connect with her company, Katalyst Career Group. 

Photo Credit Voice Advantage.

If you have to work for a living – and most of us do, life can get really complicated especially if you have a spouse and/or kids.  I have gotten past that point in my life, where I have to worry so much about the work life balance, as both of my children have left my house (although I still pay for their car insurance and cell phones). Nonetheless I understand the strife that folks go through everyday having to deal with the pressures of family life.

Last week I was walking thorough my work place and could not help but overhear a distressed employee on the phone.  He was speaking to his wife and said, “Can your mom pick you up and you get Susie at school and then come by here and get the car and take Susie to the doctor?”  I am not sure what he had going on, on all fronts but it seemed liked he had a lot going on this day.

Man, I felt for this fellow. He has a sick kid a wife at home with no transportation and he is trying not to leave work so he can save his valuable paid time off for a real emergency. Today he is just looking at a bad day which requires some special arrangements, not really worth burning time off. Now I don’t think this gentleman is any different than a lot of working parents.  He is trying to manage competing priorities everyday.

Our Company provides paid time off and FMLA; suffice it to say we try to provide employees with the needed time to deal with family emergencies or unplanned family situations.   But ultimately it is up to the employee, to decide when to “spend” their time off.   Now when my guy hangs up the phone and goes back to work do you think he is going to be completed focus on and immersed in his work.  I think not.

I am the HR guy – the people person.  Can I help this guy, should I help him?  As I said he has options but has chose not to exercise them for whatever reason.

Quickly, I run through several scenarios in my mind but none of them seem to really help the situation. Should I go pick up his wife?  Should I give him a get out of jail card?  I really can’t do anything for this fellow that I am not willing to do for anyone else, so I do nothing.  Now I feel like I have somehow failed him and the situation as a whole.

So let’s review, we have an employee who is going back to their job, and going to worry about their spouse and their sick child, the amount of time off he has left and what it is that he is doing at work.  If we are lucky we will be getting about 33% of his attention.  And the HR guy feels inadequate and uncaring which will not really help my work focus either.

I am sure this situation happens every week in most every workplace around the country. How do we help the employees find the balance they need, and make them understand we need them at work being fully engaged?  After all, life is complicated.

Photo Credit Insing. 

Guest blogger on Blogging4Jobs is Dave Ryan has been in HR since it was called Personnel. Dave is active with SHRM in many different aspects.  Dave is also a certified U.S.A. Hockey Official and a frequent speaker at local colleges who speaks about H.R. topics and social media in the workplace. Dave enjoys reading blogs, staying current on H.R. topics, officiating ice hockey, golf, computers and all gadgets electronic. You can find Dave on LinkedInDavetheHRCzar and on twitter, @davethehrczar.

With the explosion of social media it seems that individuals and companies alike are using social networks to make personal and business connections. From tweeting customer complaints to maintaining photo albums on Facebook, it has become the norm to take everyday tasks to a social medium.

 But what about job searching? Countless employers and recruiters are present on Twitter, Facebook and now maybe even Google+. With the job market still floundering, social media is a natural fit for many job seekers, especially recent college graduates who tend to be tech-savvy and accustomed to social networking already. To determine how to successfully navigate the job search process in today’s digital landscape, let’s examine the benefits and potential pitfalls of using social media for professional purposes.

Why Social May Not Be the Solution.

• Social networks are personal by nature, and full ofphotographs, status updates and information that may not be suited for the business world. Remember, you always want to put your best, most professional, foot forward.

• There are some things you can’t control, like getting tagged in a photo, or a friend Tweeting a not-so-appropriate joke at you. Sure, you can un-tag and delete, but once something is on the Internet for more than five minutes, it typically finds a way to exist forever in some form.

• As for recruiters, it’s great to research applicants to know if they’re a true fit for a position. Just follow best practices and limit interactions with candidates to professional networks and career sites.

But Are There Any Benefits?

• Of course job seekers and employers can’t ignore the impact of social media. The key is to separate your personal and professional identity, and be proactive about managing your online reputation.

• With so many people on Facebook, you might even find an employment contact there. However, be sure to access their contact information for networking purposes only instead of choosing to become “Friends.”

• Speaking of Facebook—there are some great Facebook apps that allow professionals to search jobs at companies where friends work or have worked, a great way to get insight on a potential employer or position. Niche career communities offer this app and there are more to come.  What’s really nice is when you find a job you’re interested in, you’re taken to the career community to apply—so it helps keep your personal and professional networks separate.

• Don’t ignore those privacy settings! If you choose to conduct a portion of your search through a social network, you have the ability to make your Tweets private or make yourself unsearchable on Facebook. This will ensure that what’s meant to be private stays private.

• For those candidates who want to be found, optimize your profile so you’re easily located. Use the same keywords that recruiters look for in candidates with your qualifications, so you’ll stand out.

• On the recruitment side, go ahead and use social channels to share information, make connections with candidates and promote job board postings. Just don’t connect directly with potential applicants through these networks—direct job seekers to your professional email address, web site or job posting instead.

So based on the above pros and cons—social media is a go when it comes to the job search process. When used to complement other recruitment solutions like mobile apps and niche and general career sites, it can be beneficial to both candidates and HR pros alike.

Rich Milgram is a guest blogger for Blogging4Jobs and CEO of Beyond.com.  Beyond.com is the one career network as focused as you are.  You can learn more about @Beyond_com on Twitter.  

Photo Credit SimRegdeogun. 

What “So tell me about yourself” really means?

It’s usually the first question you hear at a job interview: “Job Seeker, so, tell me a little about yourself.”

A lot of us take this as an invitation to wow the interviewer about how cool we really are. Besides being qualified for this position, they’ll really be impressed by my Star Wars collection, my three pugs and my home beer brewing hobby!  I’ll tell them about my hopes and dreams, and being so impressed by my creativity, they’ll offer the job on the spot.

Usually, um… no.

I spent a lot of money on a career counselor once who gave me some of the best advice about how to answer this question and every other question during a job interview.

“They don’t want to hear about you. They want to hear about how you can benefit them.”

Simple as that. This is, after all, a conversation in which you are trying to convince a company that you can be an asset. As long as you keep in mind that you are selling your services, experience and talents as it applies to the position, you can’t go wrong.

Save the dog stories and the beer brewing for AFTER you get the job!

So, let’s go through it again.

Interviewer:  “Job Seeker, so, tell me a little about yourself.”

Job Seeker: “Well, I graduated from ABC University with a BA in Business. Since then, I’ve worked at numerous companies, quickly going from intern to supervisor within three years. I tripled the sales numbers at XYZ company within two years. I am particularly skilled in computer applications and sales, and I feel I could make an immediate contribution to the company from day one.”

Now shut up.

With every question that comes next, keep in mind that what the interviewer wants to know is how YOU WILL BENEFIT THEM.

It’s really not about you.

It’s about how you can help them.

Employers, what do you think? Do you really want to hear about a person personally, or are you more interested in their skills? Or both?

Photo Credit Flickr & Adelle Frank. 

Heide Brandes is a writer and content creator for Xceptional HR.  She has more than 15 years of experience as an award-winning journalist and editor who specializes in human resources, career, and recruiting topics. You can learn more about Heide at HeideWrites and follow her on Twitter @heidewrite.