Which Tools to Use Linkedin-twitter-youtube

8/8/2019 Which Tools to Use Linkedin-twitter-youtube

1/7Page 1 Copyright 2009, TheLadders. All rights reserved. Page 1

The Web offers countless ways to help or hurt

your job search. How can you tell the dif-

ference? We spoke to job seekers and hiring

managers who have used the Web in their

job searches, like technology analyst Randy

Giusto (who used Twitter to keep publish-

ing his research and analysis) and David

Gordon Schmidt (who posted a video resume

on YouTube).

DOES ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION trump thehuman touch when it comes to professional net-working?

The fact of the matter is, networking is still based on

the same social conventions that have already gotten youthis far in your career: etiquette, focus and organizationstill carry the day, whether youre meeting contacts at tradi-

tional mixers or via social-networking sites.

The biggest change (and challenge) is the potential scope

of your networking efforts when the entire Web can be

applied to your job search. Cast your net too wide, and youmay dilute your efforts and waste precious time.

In this package, business writer Kevin Fogarty talks tohigh-tech job seekers and consultants about how candi-

dates can use the Web without nding themselves tangled

in distractions.

The most important thing is to have a strategy, consul-tant Paul Gillin told Fogarty. You cant put the tool rst;

you have to know what youre looking for and then use

the tool whether its Twitter or LinkedIn or Plaxo oranother service to help you get there.

Working with a NetBy Matthew Rothenberg, Editor-in-Chief, TheLadders.com

What did you think of this package? Got a story of your own to tell? Have ideas for future coverage? Please write Editor-in-Chief Matthew Rothenbergat [email protected].

Post-Merger, HR VPs Network Pays OffPage 2 Is Your Status Update Still Looking for Work? Page 5

IN THIS PACKAGE:

NETWORKING

Above: Social sites like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedInand Twitter provide job seekers with new ways to send amessage to potential employers.

See SOCIAL NETWORK Page 2

Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube:

Which Toolsto Use
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Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube: Which Tools to UseNETWORKING

ALAYOFF IS NEVER EASY. Nevertheless, if your previ-ous job was focused on studying the maze of social-net-working sites and guring out how to use them best, youd be

way ahead of the game.

At least, Randy Giusto hoped

he would. Until April, the vicepresident and research director at

market-research rm IDC was in

charge of a group of 40 analysts.

They brought in more than $15 mil-

lion per year by creating reports that

measured, and often changed the

direction of, huge markets in con-

sumer and digital media.

The shock of his layoff left

Giusto without an immediate plan.Most jobs are gotten through networking knowing people,

talking to people, and a big percentage of that today is done

through social networking as well as in person.

Like millions of other out-of-work executives, Giusto found

its hard to separate online and ofine networking in 2009.

After all, we now rely on online job boards, social-network-

ing sites and mobile devices to make connections. Knowing

people, talking to people, and nding and capitalizing on job

leads, now takes place largely online.

Industry-specic and social-networking tools

Giusto started close to home. He

signed up for groups on LinkedIn

that focused on market research,

consumer electronics, mobile and

other technology areas in which

he had some experience, and for

groups formed by recruiters hed

worked with in the past.

Members of the groups alerted

him to a series of job openings

that had either been posted only

in inaccessible places or not atall opportunities in the background job market that he

would never have seen without a connection to specic parts

of the industry, in which hed worked for years.

Vertical-market groups and networks really have become

one of the most effective, most reliable sources for that kind

of job information, according toPaul Gillin, author ofThe

New Inuencers and Secrets of Social Media Market-

FROM THE TIME RICK JOERS got thenews that his employer, JP Morgan,would be acquiring Bear Stearns, he sensed

that he might be working toward eliminat-

ing his own job. At the same time, he was

too busy helping to merge the two compa-

nies to do any serious work on his resume

or start a job search.

Joers, a vice president of human resourc-

es at JP Morgan for the past eight years,

started working toward a layoff on a Sun-

day afternoon last year. My boss called me

in on Sunday, March 16. I worked until 1

a.m. that day on the acquisition. It was the

start of a six-month project. I knew even

then that there was a chance I might not

have a job when the merger was complete.

But we were working long hours; there was

a lot to do. I didnt have time to do my work

and search for another job.

Indeed, he got word by June that he would

be losing his job, and on Sept. 15, he left JP

Morgan. Compounding his concern about

looking for a job was the fact that, at the

age of 58, he had not done a job search in a

very long time. Id always had headhunters

Post-Merger, HR VPs Network Pays OffRick Joers knew his HR role at JP Morgan might disappear when he nished helping the company acquire

Bear Stearns. When the ax fell, Joers had to nd new networks in a shrinking industry.

By Sean Gallagher

Gillin

4SOCIAL NETWORK

Giusto

Joers
http://twitter.com/randygiustohttp://gillin.com/http://gillin.com/http://paulgillin.com/newinfluencers/http://paulgillin.com/newinfluencers/http://paulgillin.com/newinfluencers/http://ssmmbook.com/http://www.theladders.com/job-searchhttp://www.theladders.com/job-searchhttp://ssmmbook.com/http://paulgillin.com/newinfluencers/http://paulgillin.com/newinfluencers/http://gillin.com/http://twitter.com/randygiusto


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ing, and tech-industry veteran/consultant who specializes in

social-network marketing.

A lot of people think they dont have the time or expertise to

use industry-specic or at-large social-networking sites, Gillin

said. But if you make yourself savvy, and its not hard, in how

to use Plaxo and LinkedIn and Twitter and vertical networks,

you can do a lot. He focused his job search on one: Twitter.

When he was at IDC, Giusto maintained a Twitter feed where

IDC customers could follow his analysis of industry issues in

the news. He realized he could leverage this and show his value

to potential employers by compiling and analyzing information

for his followers.

That kept me in contact with a lot of people who (had)

sought me out. People (were) saying they didnt have any open-

ings right now, but offering or raising the possibility of some

consulting work that might last through the summer, and (say

ing) we could talk more in the fall, Giusto said. Especially inJuly and August, when the number of job postings went way

down, I built a network of people with different specialties

could turn to on a freelance basis to fulll some of the more

complicated engagements.

This push strategy on Twitter resulted in most of hi

job contacts coming to him, rather than vice versa. Mostly

they came through Twitter or they

searched on LinkedIn for people

with certain skills and found me that

way, he said.

Start with a strategy, not a tool

Too many job seekers approach

their social networks the wrong way

when theyre looking for a job, said

Ellen Gordon Reeves, author of

Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the

Interview and consultant/career

coach at the Columbia Publishing

calling me or someone from my net-

work calling me about jobs, he said.

I hadnt had to actively search be-

fore. So, I had to start from scratch.

Joers said the outplacement rm

he worked with put a lot of empha-

sis on networking, which, in a more

sane economy, made sense, he said.

But I was worried, in this market,

networking would take too long. The

nancial-services market was quicklyconsolidating. The people I was talk-

ing to were also losing their jobs. I

knew I couldnt just use my profes-

sional network.

So, he said, he thought about differ-

ent ways to attack the market and de-

termine what he could offer employ-

ers. At the same time, he decided to

open up his search to Northern Cali-

fornia as well as New York.

I did a lot of work in mergers and

acquisitions and global organizations.

I had some expertise in employee re-

lations, he said. So I started looking

at companies other than nancial ser-

vices that could use those strengths.

And, last fall, my partner was work-

ing for a company based out of So-noma. So my strategy was to target

my search in Silicon Valley, because

one of my major projects had been

supporting global technology.

New networking channels

He didnt have any professional

contacts in the San Francisco Bay

area, but he did have a network on

LinkedIn that he tapped: The Gay,

Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender group

had many members who were pro-

fessionals in the technology eld. He

was surprised at how many people

were willing to talk to him. People

were very responsive and helpful, he

said. I met a lot of people through

LinkedIn and talked to them about

moving into technology.

At the same time, Joers became an

HRLadder member, hoping to nd

job listings in the Bay area. I set alerts

for Northern California and New

York City, and targeted my search in

those two locations, he said. Youve

got to have a lot of quivers and a lot

of arrows to hand.

ReevesRandy Giustos Twitter feed.
http://ssmmbook.com/http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1175372207611/page/1165270091617/simplepage.htmhttp://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1175372207611/page/1165270091617/simplepage.htmhttp://ssmmbook.com/


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Course a six-week, graduate-level training

program on magazine and book publishing.

Some just march right out and broadcast, I

need a job. Can anyone help?

Desperation creates paralysis, she said.

People get a whiff of desperation, and it turns

them off, for one thing. When people feel outof control, theyll say theyre happy to do any-

thing. When you say that, theres nothing in my

brain (as a contact) that I can use to help you.

I have all these networks and contacts and re-

sources, but if I dont have a clue what youre

looking for, I dont know how to help you.

When you approach people like that youre ask-

ing the helper or potential employer to do the

digging to gure out how to help you.

The best approach is the same direct-contact,

web-of-trust method used in more traditional,

in-person networking, Gillin said.

The most important thing is to have a strat-

egy, he said. Ill go to events that people go

to with the express purpose of networking

for jobs and they havent even thought about

how I can help them. You cant put the tool

rst; you have to know what youre looking for

and then use the tool whether its Twitter

or LinkedIn or Plaxo or another service to

help you get there.

You have to stop looking for a job, and star

looking for a person, Reeves agreed.

If you ask a roomful of people how they

got their jobs, 80 percent will say it was

through some kind of referral. So you have tostop sending your resume into the black hole

of cyberspace, and use the tools to research

and nd the companies and the job youre in

terested in and the person you should talk to

about that job. Then you use social-networking

tools to make that contact happen.

Examples of good

strategies in action

That backdoor

approach works re-

markably well, ac-

cording to Aliza

Freud, CEO of She-

Speaks.com, a word-

of-mouth marketing

startup that enrolls

women in a coop-

He went to San Francisco in late

October to meet with several people

he had met on LinkedIn. And, while

people were eager to talk to him, he

realized the Northern California mar-

ket (and the technology eld speci-

cally) was going to be a tough nut to

crack. I was trying to sell myself as

someone with a unique skill set, but

right now, if you didnt have direct

experience with a technology com-pany, most companies didnt want to

talk. The job market in California

had slowed to a crawl in November,

and his partner realized he wouldnt

be able to transfer there, so Joers

decided to steer his focus back to

New York.

And back to nancial services.

While on Sept. 15, I thought there

was no way I could nd another job

at a nancial institution, it was begin-

ning to seem like that would be the

best place for me, Joers said. Those

were the people that were most re-

ceptive to my resume.

Traditional networking channels

In the end, his network camethrough for him. A recruiter placed

an ad on TheLadders for a position at

the Royal Bank of Scotland. I con-

tacted the recruiter, and they called

me the next day, he said. I went

on LinkedIn, and a woman who had

done consulting for JP Morgan when

I was there was now working at RBS.

I e-mailed her that I was applying for

a position at her company; she wrote

to tell me that the position reports to

her. Since she was the most inuential

decision maker, it was helpful to have

someone who knew me.

Several rounds of interviews begin-

ning in November ended with a job

offer in January. He is now technical

partner at Royal Bank of Scotland,with oversight of employee relations.

His new job, based in Stamford,

Conn., requires him to commute over

an hour each way, but hes happy to

be working and to have found a job

as quickly as he did.

If you ask aroomful ofpeople how

they gottheir jobs,80 percentwill say itwas throughsome kind ofreferral.

Ellen Gordon Reeves,

author, consultant/

career coach atthe ColumbiaPublishing Course

See SOCIAL NETWORK Page 6

Freud
http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1175372207611/page/1165270091617/simplepage.htmhttp://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1175372207611/page/1165270091617/simplepage.htm


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L

ATELY IVE BEEN READING A LOT of status updateson business and social networking sites that say things like

Project Manager professional looking for work or Lookingfor work in a tough economy or Just received my degree

in accounting looking for work. While I understand thatthese job seekers are trying to advertise their candidacy online,I dont recommend broadcasting this specic message in your

status updates. Heres why:

1. Blasting this message to your entire network makes

you look desperate. You might as well rent a billboardto promote your job search...yes, I know there are sto-

ries about people landing a job this way, but these tacticsget old fast. (And by the way, the guy who landed a job

by wearing a sandwich board saying he was looking forwork is so 2008.)

2. Posting this message makes people in your network

uncomfortable. Imagine agreeing to meet someone forcoffee and before the coffee is even cool enough to drinkyou say, Im looking for work. Its awkward. It places

an unrealistic expectation on your contacts to come upwith a solution for you. The same thing happens onlinewhen you announce that you are looking for work.

3. Sending this message leaves you little wiggle room

for a follow-up message. Think about if. If you are stil

in a job search next week, what will your status updatebe? Still looking for work isnt going to cut it.

Status updates on business and social-networking platformslike Facebook and LinkedIn are a way for you to build rap-

port with a community and deepen the relationship withyour contacts. Chose messages that showcase your expertiseshare valuable information, give kudos to others or broad-

cast an exciting endeavor you are working on (even if it isvolunteer work).

Here are some examples of alternative status updates youmight want to adapt for your situation:

For a fundraiser executive:

Volunteering at the American Cancer Society walk-

athon on Sunday; hope to raise more than $2M.

For an HR professional:

Attending a seminar on compensation plans for 2009

and beyond at (share the link)

For an advertising professional:

My colleague, John Smith just landed a major accountwith a leading luxury goods company. Way to go John!

For a CIO:

Reading an interesting article on new technologies inhealth care at (share the link)

For a nancial analyst:

Boning up on study materials for the CFA Level IIexam...looks like its going to be a long night!

Create status updates that invite questions and further conversation, not ones that make your network run for cover

Remember, online networking, like face-to-face networking is a process. Whenever possible, give before you get andyou will be surprised how quickly you get something backin return.

Barbara Safani, owner of Career Solvers, has over twelve year

of experience in career management, recruiting, executive coaching, and

organizational development. She is a triple certifed resume writer and

author of Happy About My Resume: 50 Tips for Building a Bette

Document to Secure a Brighter Future.

Looking back, hes glad he gave some other options

a try, but in this economy, he is better off staying in

something he knows. It would have been fun to take

the plunge and go to San Francisco, he said. I had

a six-month severance, but it was going to take more

than six months for me to nd something there. And

I didnt want to tap into savings.

And while his two-pronged strategy made sense, he

said he learned to not underestimate himself or his

skills, even in this tough economic market. I had the

mistaken belief that there was no way to go back to abank or nancial-services rm because of what was

happening in the market, he said. The power of

your resume, especially if you have built a career in

the market, should not be overlooked. My global ex-

perience was very helpful, and my employee-relations

experience and M&A experience. In the end, it worked

for me.

Is Your Status Update Still Looking for Work?By Barbara Safani
http://www.theladders.com/job-searchhttp://www.careersolvers.com/http://www.careersolvers.com/http://www.theladders.com/job-search


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erative effort to make their voices heard to developers of the

products they use.

Example 1: One candidate Freud recently hired got noticed

by searching SheSpeaks.com to get familiar with the companys

approach, and also following Freuds own Twitter feed to gain

a better perspective on my thinking and hot buttons (as a po-tential employer), Freud said.

Example 2: Another researched the company and then used

LinkedIn to nd connections who could make the recom-

mendations that helped make the candidate stand out among

hundreds of candidates and eventually land the job, she said.

Using video to put you in the spotlight

Without a direct link to a company a contact who knows

the hiring manager or can introduce you its hard to

get noticed.

It is especially difcult in industries where there have

been so many layoffs that theres a crowd for every oppor-

tunity that crops up, said David Schmidt, a Michigan-based

MktgLadder member and 20-year PR and marketing veteran

who specializes in manufacturing technology and IT-related

professional services.

Not even professional associations are exempt from the glut.

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), in which

Schmidt has been active as a member and speaker, is so packed

with job seekers that its job boards generate the same over-

whelming ood of resumes as more general sites, he said.

One way to get noticed is to use an innovative bit of technol-

ogy or marketing, like a video resume. Schmidt, who lost his

management job two months ago when his agency went out

of business, recorded and posted a

three-minute resume he believes can

highlight his skills and experience,

give an idea of what hes like to

work with, and maybe even attract

attention a text resume wouldnt. As

an appendix to his video resume, he

also produced a short tutorial on

Web 2.0 practices, available on his

YouTube account.

Youve got to try anything you

can to set yourself apart, Schmidt said. Im only getting

started with this and a couple of other approaches, but its a

new way to get an edge and can impart more about my person-

ality and some of my video and producing skills.

New technology strategies like Schmidts can produce results

or waste a lot of time depending on the person produc-

ing and the picture that gets painted. It can be ineffective for

people who are not making their message clear or presenting

a consistent picture of themselves in all the social media they

use, Gillin said.

What I tell people is to pick LinkedIn or Plaxo or whatever

network youre most comfortable in; get all your information

up to date, and tell people clearly what youre looking for. Then

make that prole the one you update with new information,

Gillin said. Take that information and syndicate it to the other

networks you use Twitter or Facebook or whatever butuse one as the base to work from. It saves a lot of energy and

not only avoids having you look completely different on each

network but confusing people.

Aliza Freuds LinkedIn profle.

David Schmidts video resume

Schmidt

4SOCIAL NETWORK


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Narrow your focus, and your sources

The general job boards are full of junk, so you have to nd

the ones that lter some of that out, according to Schmidt,

who uses MktgLadder and follows several Twitter feeds to nd

job leads.

One problem is that Twitter with its tweets and retweetsand tweetups is alien-sounding and overwhelming to the

uninitiated, said Rick Stomphorst, a director of operations and

development at Econstruction.com who is highly rated by the

LinkedIn community as an expert on the use of social net-

works.

A huge number of new jobs are posted through Twitter, but

the number of feeds is so enormous that its hard to nd them,

he said.

One option is to identify a small number of companies you

want to work with or recruiters who work in your industry,search for the Twitter feeds of executives from those com-

panies, and follow them. You learn a lot about their priori-

ties and methods, often hear about their job postings rst,

and get yourself instant credibility as a longtime follower of

their tweets.

Corporate social networks

Finding job listings is one thing; nding them credible is

another, said Kate Lukach, director of marketing for Select-

Minds, which develops software that companies use to create

their own social networks.

SelectMinds has become one of the leading software pro-

viders for social networks owned and controlled by specic

companies and organizations, like alumni associations and

industry groups.

When a company implements this closed network soft-

ware, job seekers get a good source of job leads at a company

where theyre already a known commodity, so it improves their

chances of landing a job. And it drastically cuts the cost of

recruiting, vetting and training new employees, Lukach said.

Internal, corporate social networks compete with less con-

trolled, sometimes less focused alumni networks or social

networks such as LinkedIn, Ning.com and others. But theyre

qualitatively different, Lukach said. Each users real name

(not a made-up user name) and work history is accessible via

hyperlink when they comment within the closed network. This

all but guarantees members behave as if theyre in a company

conference room, not on the wild Web, she said.

Too many options

Using Twitter, LinkedIn, video, e-mail, IM and a host of

tools, aggregation sites and other information-gathering mech-

anisms can jump-start a job search, but each one also comes

with a cost, according to Schmidt.

Some of the new services and techniques are more effective

than others. And each one comes with a learning curve.

Its still the Wild West out there, but the resources you can

nd are getting so deep and rich you can do amazing things,

Schmidt said. The challenge becomes which ones are worth

the time to invest, because you cant ignore personal con-

tacts and phone calls and just sit in front of the computer

all day.

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Which Tools to Use Linkedin-twitter-youtube