What can you do with a BA in Film Studies (or a minor in Philosophy for the matter)? Graduating into an otherwise uncertain job market can be scary; many of my classmates still weren’t sure how they could use their well-developed new media skills, much less where they might be employed.  For me the answer seemed obvious: I went right back into school to study strategic communication.

Yet this time last year I graduated once again, with an internship lined up but without a clear direction for my own career.  I could only dream of working as a social media pro, but my inexperience and overeducation seemed like insurmountable hurdles to post-graduate employment. Only recently was I finally able to find employment with a like-minded group of professionals who shared my passion for creating innovative websites and reinvigorating established brands through strategic online marketing.

Recently I heard from an old friend who wanted to break into online marketing and new media as well. Although I knew first hand of their knowledgeable understanding of online communication and social networks, their challenge was to demonstrate that knowledge to an potential employer. It’s the same reason why I went back into school to study communication, but in this business environment experience is valued more than education.

While I can’t speak for everyone, here’s what I think might help from my own experience:

1. Create a resume website: ideally using your own name (like me), or else build your personal brand around a site you can make.
2. Connect it with your social media profiles. Secure your name across platforms (even if your not sure how to use them yet).
3. Rock that SEO magic (keyword blog posts, inbound links), and connect to colleagues’ and friends’ sites. This can be accomplished through a professional blog that shows off your knowledge of using social media.
4. Make sure you get to Page 1 when someone Google’s your name.

Hopefully these steps will help you demonstrate your talent using online media, but personal branding alone is not enough to get a job.  Without being able to go into specifics, here’s some general tips that could help you get a job:

• Learn the Language:  Bone up on your communications and marketing knowledge with some supplemental reading from your favorite thought leaders.  Avoid self-proclaimed Experts, Ninjas, and Gurus.
• Join the Conversation:  Establish yourself as an authority about the subjects you care about online, using social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Read about offline Pros: Learn about measurement, and reinforce your own understanding of communication theory. Sadly, this blog doesn’t count as required reading.
• Network IRL:  Introduce yourself to other professionals and find jobs which aren’t advertised (this worked for me).  You can join me at an event if you like.
• Write: Read the AP Stylebook like a bible, and hone your writing craft.

There’s no magic formula that works for everyone; in fact perhaps it’s most important to be yourself!  If you’re a strong writer, use your resume website to highlight your copywriting or news stories.  Or if you’re a great at video editing, use your site to highlight the best clips you upload to YouTube.  Making your own website offers an ideal opportunity to introduce the best work in your portfolio, and will build a body of work which will cement your professional reputation.  With some work and a little luck I know you can break into this field too!

Today I celebrate my 25th birthday and the first anniversary of this website, which neatly coincides with the 25th anniversary of dot-com domains. In the year since I started writing this blog, so much in my life has changed:

• Graduated from American University with a Master’s degree in Public Communication.
• Created social media strategy for a non-profit, and raised funds my favorite cause through tactics on Facebook.
• Managed Twitter accounts and Facebook pages for entrepreneurs, local bloggers, and established brands.
• Found an internship through Twitter, learned about research and professional writing, and was called a “social media power-user” by my colleagues.
• Television transitioned from analog to digital, but I still watch most of my video online.
• Online retailers of music, video and applications became the biggest, and opinion leaders curated our online content.
• Moved from DC to NYC, and started to build my professional network.
• Blogged about my passion for tasty beers.
• Started working with a leading web design, SEO, and online marketing company.
• Met many more Matt Hursts on the internet, built my personal brand, and became a professional.

If I haven’t been keeping up with the blog as much lately, it’s because I’m finally applying the insights I’ve written about here through my new work.  I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish working as a social media and online marketing pro, so expect to hear more about those experiences soon. Until then, thank you for sharing this journey from student to professional along with me.

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.