Posts Tagged jobs
I’m LinkedIn, but why?
Posted by MattHurst in Professional Networking, Social Media, Work on December 1st, 2009
It has been said that 8 out of 10 job opportunities come from sources outside of those advertised. So it might be assumed that social networks, especially those centered around professional relationships like LinkedIn, would be ideal tools to find jobs and recruit new talent. Yet in the experiences of many job hunters, including myself, social networks like LinkedIn have yet to live up to this promise.
Social networks are a great tool for HR professionals and other job recruiters, making it easier than ever to search for employees with the right experience and skills. Besides Facebook and Twitter, social networks such as LinkedIn, Plaxo, Brazen Careerist, and Xing have become popular places to post resumes and connect with like minded professionals. Sometimes these professional networks have been known to generate new business opportunities, but for many job seekers these sites offer no greater a resource to find employment than Monster.com.
Part of the problem lies in how LinkedIn is used differently than other social networks. Once you’ve finished setting up your profile with your resume and begin to connect with other professionals, there is little else to do on the site. While LinkedIn has 50 million registered accounts, less than half are active at least monthly (according to Quantcast).
Besides expanding your network of connections, LinkedIn confines interaction between its users to those who are already connected. Even with the integration of Twitter into the LinkedIn platform, interactions between members of a network are largely limited to interpersonal discussion. By comparison to the open/public conversations that make Facebook and Twitter so popular, the end effect is to make discussion seem closed-off or private, further discouraging discovery and interaction between its members.
To be sure these social networks are becoming more popular as professionals look for meaningful ways to network online, or at least in a different (less personal) way than Facebook or Myspace promotes. According to a Pew report the median age of a LinkedIn user is 39, significantly older than Twitter (31) or Facebook (33). Perhaps this better explains why these communities interact differently; LinkedIn users might feel they are finished using the network once they’ve set up a profile, rather than integrating social media as part their everyday lives.
In my own job search, LinkedIn could be playing a pivotal role, although so far its just a supporting piece of the puzzle. To be sure I’ve written recommendations for colleagues, networked in groups like #PRStudChat, and reached out through mutual connections, all of which have expanded my network. So far LinkedIn has yet to land me any meaningful job opportunities, at least compared to board-based services like Mediabistro and Craigslist. Until LinkedIn can leverage of their social network to create opportunities, especially for individual users, its potential will continue to yield diminishing returns on investment for organizations.
Moving On
No I’m not moving my web address, but in real life from DC to New York City. Following graduation from American University and an internship at New Media Strategies, I’ll be moving to New York City (or Brooklyn rather) to seek employment as a communications professional.
As a long time proponent of location-based media, this move is more than simply a personal transition for me. This last week marks one year since I entered a Youtube video contest sponsored by WMATA (which I went on to win) documenting my commute in celebration of Car-Free Day in Washington, DC. I’ve been preparing for my move by writing a review and tribute to my neighborhood, Glover Park, on my local blog Pedestrian Capable DC, which specializes in transit and local issues.
Of course writing about local interests has been a professional interest of mine long before moving to Washington, DC. While still a student at Webster University in Saint Louis I established another local blog, Highway 61 Revised, which created original news stories for college audiences within the metro area. Alongside a team of other young journalists and engaged writers, we created original blog posts, mixtapes, videos, photo essays, and event listings which engaged a local audience of blog readers through its website and social media tie-ins.
I learned about building relationships with local media and other bloggers through my blog, and had a few adventures along the way. Being a blogger has introduced me to a whole ecosystem of location-based social media that I still use everyday, from the Craigslist postings that helped me move to the marketing opportunities of newer networks like Brightkite and Foursquare. Without these services I might have had a harder time finding out where to move, much less discovering my own neighborhood through the word-of-mouth recommendations of my neighbors.
As I prepare to move into my new home in New York City, I know I will use location-based social media to discover the landscape once more; reading local blogs and checking consumer-review websites like Yelp are only the beginning. In the meantime I’m still addicted to blog feeds from STL and DC, now augmented by new media in New York City. I’m looking forward to beginning a new adventure in New York, learning from my experience using location-based social media in order to discover what’s worthwhile and new wherever life takes me.
The Resume Website
I knew it would help to build a website with my resume, but I didn’t realize how much. Ever since publicly launching this site less than a month ago, I have been humbled by all the positive feedback from colleagues, classmates, prospective employers, and on social networks.
A few have even asked me to help build their own websites, although I haven’t decided how much to charge. The truth is that almost anyone is able to build a website like this one. I had never learned how to buy a domain name, web hosting, or to set up the website until I tried it for myself.
I am a firm believer that blogs are capable websites for almost any purpose, so I devised my resume website as a Wordpress blog (this part is free). By hosting my own blog (not necessarily free) I needed to set up Wordpress in their famous 5-minute installation. This open-source software gives me the ability to customize by adding features and designs to my blog. And since this is a blog, it doesn’t take any advanced knowledge of codes or programming to build it; making this website is as simple as writing with a word processor.
I would be happy to make a few bucks helping my friends build a nice looking website, but I think they might learn some valuable skills by trying it for themselves. At least a few of my friends have been doing just that on their own websites. And until this site makes the first page of Google search results for my name, it’s going to take a lot more to make my own name stick out from all the other Matthew Hurst’s of the world.
Building this website has been an ongoing process, helping me to consider how it could be improved by incorporating feedback. There is almost always a better way to do this work I really appreciate all the feedback so far, but I have trouble taking credit; after all it’s just another Wordpress blog.
The Twitter Internship?
Sure Twitter is great for getting feedback from your work and building relationships online, but what if Twitter actually helped generate work opportunities instead of just creating work for you? That is exactly the opening I discovered for myself, and all I had to do was make a comment on Twitter to find it.
In my search for a summer internship in DC, using Twitter has become indispensable for learning about the social media and PR firms I might apply to for work. Not only does it help me understand those communications companies on the cutting edge, but the participatory nature of Twitter helped a company find me. Before I knew it I had the inside-line on internships offered to me, even as no such positions are being publicly offered.
About 3 weeks ago I bookmarked the website for New Media Strategies, using a service which publicly shares my bookmarks through Twitter. I was surprised when NMS, who must have been following public discussion of their company using Twitter (as they would for any of their clients), replied almost immediately to my update on Twitter directly. I was impressed, and we started to follow each other on Twitter.
Almost a week later I had finished a short internship inquiry application, with the intent to discover any more job openings at NMS, but their website did not make it entirely clear where such applications might be sent. So I sent another message on Twitter directed towards NMS, inquiring about where to send my application, which replied to me a name and email address of the right HR rep for social media. Their employee was also polite enough to include their personal Twitter feed, giving me access to someone inside of their organization that could help keep track of my application.
After a few modifications to my resume and a new cover letter, I am happy to say my application has earned the attention of New Media Strategies. I am definitely excited in learning more about this possible internship, although I am still seeking and applying for positions around DC.
To me the most revealing aspect of this whole development is how new communication tools, like Twitter, mirror the process of networking in real life. While NMS took advantage of Twitter as a tool to monitor public opinion about their organization, it also gives individuals like myself powerful access to information that might otherwise have been achieved with a phone call or a fishing letter.
At the very least, the counselors at American University were impressed with the job offering I found outside of those being posted online. Perhaps a little initiative and novelty in communication might help me stand out from the rest of the job market in my internship applications for this summer.