We’ve been blogging a lot lately about how organizations can leverage the juggernaut that is Twitter, but according to a recent article on CNNMoney.com, more and more professionals are using social networking sites to find new job opportunities.
Reporter Jessica Dickler says, “In the worst job market in 25 years, building an online presence is crucial to getting a job. Who you connect to, “follow” and “friend” can be just as important as conventional tools like résumés.”
Twitter and Facebook have made is easy for people to let their professional and social networks know that they’re looking for a job. Whether it’s a tweet or a status update, the information is out in the universe instantaneously, as opposed to the traditional e-mail or phone call.
Dickler goes on to mention that job seekers don’t necessarily need to send out a tweet and wait for leads to come back to them. “There are several services associated with social networking sites to such as TweetMyJobs, which sends out automatic updates of new openings in a specific field and region sent to your cell phone or by Twitter.”
The classified ads may be a thing of the past, but when it comes to uncovering new business leads or job opportunities, it’s still all about relationship building. The rise of social networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter are merely new tools to help build those relationships and shouldn’t be ignored by those looking for a job or new business prospects.
As a PR professional, I use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn on a daily basis to gather a variety of different information including my clients’ competitors, trends in a particular industry as well as journalists, new companies and potential business prospects. I’ve found social networks to be an invaluable tool to help me quickly find the information I’m looking for and I suspect, I’ll be finding new ways to use these networks as they continue to evolve.