LinkedInAdvice.com: April 2011

What's In A Name? A Lot, Says LinkedIn

By William Fenton

Names tell stories: LinkedIn locates divides by gender, nationality, and profession.

If I had my sights on the corner office, I'd do well to re-brand myself as "Bill." According to LinkedIn, that is. After scouring its repository of 100 million professionals, LinkedIn has released some fascinating data about first names and career paths, not to mention some delightful infographics.

Thanks to its global reach, LinkedIn has data on professionals from across the planet. Senior Research Scientist Monica Rogati started by combing the database for names over-indexed (over-represented) among CEOs. The results revealed a gender divide.

While monosyllabic names are over-represented amongst American executives, globally it's another story. The Brazilians have Roberto, Spaniards Xavier, Germans Wolfgang, and the Italians—I'm not making this up—Guido. And that's before season 4.

What's In A Name? A Lot, Says LinkedIn

By William Fenton
Names tell stories: LinkedIn locates divides by gender, nationality, and profession.

If I had my sights on the corner office, I'd do well to re-brand myself as "Bill." According to LinkedIn, that is. After scouring its repository of 100 million professionals, LinkedIn has released some fascinating data about first names and career paths, not to mention some delightful infographics.

Thanks to its global reach, LinkedIn has data on professionals from across the planet. Senior Research Scientist Monica Rogati started by combing the database for names over-indexed (over-represented) among CEOs. The results revealed a gender divide.
LinkedIn CEO Names

The top five CEO names for men were either short or shortened versions of popular first names: Peter, Bob, Jack, Bruce, and Fred. The top five names for women executives, meanwhile, tended to use full names: Deborah, Sally, Debra, Cynthia, and Carolyn. Of the contrast, Rogati cites Onomastics specialist Dr. Frank Nuessel, who posits that males use shortened names to "denote a sense of friendliness and openness," whereas females employ full names to "project a more professional image."

While monosyllabic names are over-represented amongst American executives, globally it's another story. The Brazilians have Roberto, Spaniards Xavier, Germans Wolfgang, and the Italians—I'm not making this up—Guido. And that's before season 4.

More Info On Name And Complete Article

The Hunt - A Graduating College Student's Search For A Job

Dan Treadway

Student, University of Texas

I opened my inbox to find yet another email with a generic yet familiar subject line. Its content was predictable:
"Reaching the final stage of interviews is an accomplishment, and as we mentioned, competition is extremely high for a very limited number of positions. While we were very impressed with your qualifications, regretfully, you will not be continuing on in the process."

As far as form letter job rejection emails go, it was surprisingly thorough, containing three whole paragraphs. A separate rejection email I had received a couple of weeks prior was only a couple of sentences long. I can't recall the copy of the email exactly, but in my mind it read, "You didn't get the job. Sucks."

I had made up my mind in September of my senior year that I would try to find a job after I graduated in the hopes of gaining some real world experience before eventually going to graduate school.

Naturally, I understood the economy wasn't begging for another wide-eyed communications major to be unleashed upon it, but I had a fleeting sense of optimism that I'd be a compelling candidate for something at least. I felt like I had done most things right throughout college: I maintained a high GPA, got solid internship experience, and somehow I had managed to never get arrested.

At first my optimism seemed warranted. I got a response from the first large company I applied to and subsequently was in contact with them until January. Following five interviews, I assumed that I was a shoe-in for the position. After all, I had answered and re-answered questions regarding just about everything except my dental history. But alas, one fateful Friday my phone rang and I was given a classic, "We really like you and think you're going to be successful, but we just don't think this was the right fit." Not the right fit after five interviews? That's one complicated puzzle.

I decided to change up my strategy and, in addition to applying to jobs, I attended the glorified meat market known as a career fair on my campus. While I was there I met a woman who thought I was a good candidate for the media organization she represented and I was encouraged to apply for a paid internship there. I kept in touch with her as I applied, and was eventually contacted by the organization and told that several shows were interested in me and that they would call me individually for interviews in the coming weeks. I sat by my phone, and, as phones have a tendency to do whenever one sits by them, it never rang.

From there I continued my search and somehow was selected as a finalist to drive the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile around the country. It started as mostly a joke when I first applied on my colleges career services website, and within a month it became a realistic possibility as I was flown out to Wisconsin to interview with 29 other candidates, of which 12 would be selected. The interview was fun, and everyone at the company was nice, but alas three weeks later I learned that I did not cut the mustard. I was Oscar Mayer humbled.

Now, eight months, dozens of applications, and six final interviews with various companies that resulted in generic rejection phone calls/emails later, I've begun relating to excerpts from the Upton Sinclair novel The Jungle, of all things.

"They were beaten; they had lost the game, they were swept aside. It was not less tragic because it was so sordid, because that it had to do with wages and grocery bills and rents."

Read The Rest Of Dan's Story @ HuffingtonPost

LinkedIn: #1 Place for Job Searchers Online

By Marilyn Maslin @ Resume Footprint

According to the 2010 Global Brainstorming Day LinkedIn is now the #1 online networking platform for active and passive job searchers. Career coaches, resume writers, and outplacement specialists all agree that if you are looking to impress, be found, and get results online, you need a well-branded LinkedIn profile.

Today’s hiring managers use LinkedIn to source and research candidates. Devote time to establishing a quality, branded LinkedIn profile that will attract recruiters and job opportunities. Job searchers, who don’t take time to write a strategic, keyword rich LinkedIn profile, may be overlooked by recruiters.

About LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the largest professional network online, hitting a milestonein May 2011, with over 100 million members in over 200 countries and territories. About one million new members join LinkedIn every week. Originally created as a place to build an online resume, today it is primarily used for professional networking.

Users create profiles promoting their work history or online resumes. LinkedIn profiles include career history, education, connections and professional recommendations. Additionally you can join groups for networking purposes.

How to Find a Job Using LinkedIn

Build Your Personal Brand: Use your LinkedIn profile to manage your professional brand or career footprint. This self-packaging is all about differentiation you in the job marketplace. You want to leave an indelible impression on your contacts and the community that is uniquely distinguishable.

Profile Perfect: Your LinkedIn profile must match your resume and needs to be complete and flawless. No spelling or typographical errors. This is your resume online and it will be critiqued by recruiters, hiring managers and HR staff.

Professional Photo: Get an updated, professional headshot made and communicate to your prospective employer who you are through your energy, warmth and approachability. If you don’t have a professional portrait, post a flattering, professional picture of yourself.

Headline: Your headline will automatically display as the last job you held unless you change it. Consider making your headline your professional brand, or the job you are targeting. Brand yourself for the job you want – for your future.

More advice and complete article on Examiner.com: LinkedIn: #1 Place for Job Searchers Online - Denver job search | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/job-search-in-denver/linkedin-1-place-for-job-searchers-online#ixzz1KeiflfwX

LinkedIn: #1 Place for Job Searchers Online

By Marilyn Maslin @ Resume Footprint

Today’s hiring managers use LinkedIn to source and research candidates. Devote time to establishing a quality, branded LinkedIn profile that will attract recruiters and job opportunities. Job searchers, who don’t take time to write a strategic, keyword rich LinkedIn profile, may be overlooked by recruiters.

About LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the largest professional network online, hitting a milestonein May 2011, with over 100 million members in over 200 countries and territories. About one million new members join LinkedIn every week. Originally created as a place to build an online resume, today it is primarily used for professional networking.

Users create profiles promoting their work history or online resumes. LinkedIn profiles include career history, education, connections and professional recommendations. Additionally you can join groups for networking purposes.

How to Find a Job Using LinkedIn

Build Your Personal Brand: Use your LinkedIn profile to manage your professional brand or career footprint. This self-packaging is all about differentiation you in the job marketplace. You want to leave an indelible impression on your contacts and the community that is uniquely distinguishable.

Profile Perfect: Your LinkedIn profile must match your resume and needs to be complete and flawless. No spelling or typographical errors. This is your resume online and it will be critiqued by recruiters, hiring managers and HR staff.

Professional Photo: Get an updated, professional headshot made and communicate to your prospective employer who you are through your energy, warmth and approachability. If you don’t have a professional portrait, post a flattering, professional picture of yourself.

Headline: Your headline will automatically display as the last job you held unless you change it. Consider making your headline your professional brand, or the job you are targeting. Brand yourself for the job you want – for your future.

Five Steps to Building Your Network

by Douglas R. Conant

One morning in the 1980s, I went to the office as usual and was told that my job was being eliminated. I packed up my personal effects and left the building by lunchtime.

I was, of course, in shock. For 10 years, my whole world had consisted of my work with this company and my young, growing family. Now half of that world had disappeared. I was angry and bitter and I felt remarkably alone.

Fortunately, the company set me up with an outplacement counselor who gave me very good advice about building a network — advice that I follow to this day. I not only found a new great job that helped me get my career on track, but I built relationships with hundreds of friends and advisors who have stood me in good stead for decades.

Here's my step-by-step guide to building your own successful network.

Step #1: Identify your network cluster. First, figure out where you want to focus your efforts. Do you want to work for a large corporation, a medium-sized company, or a startup? Are you interested in marketing, sales, manufacturing, IT or any other specific function? What are your geography limitations? Then, create a list of contacts within those parameters — not just executives within a chosen company, but also executive search specialists, consultants, and anyone else who can help within your areas of interest and expertise.

Step #2: Ask for ideas and advice. Contact each person on your list and say, "I was recommended to you by [so-and-so]. I'm hoping to get your ideas and advice for my job search, and would appreciate 15 minutes of your time." During your interview, give them your brief elevator pitch outlining your background and skills, and then ask for their ideas and advice. Remember, this meeting is not about asking for a job. It's about being very sensitive to your interviewee's time, and listening carefully to what they have to say. As the meeting wraps up, ask for names of a couple of people they recommend you talk to. With each interview, you will gain two more leads. Within a few months, you will develop a large number of leads in your areas of interest.

Step #3: Follow up immediately with personal, handwritten thank-you notes to everyone you encountered during the meeting — not just your interviewee, but also to the executive assistant and even the person at the front desk — and mail it the day after your interview. Doing so signals that you are a quality person, that you care, and that you are on top of your game. This is an opportunity for you to establish a distinctive job search — make the most of it.

Steps 4 - 5 and Complete Harvard Business Review Article

Douglas R. Conant is President and CEO of the Campbell Soup Company headquartered in Camden, New Jersey. He is the co-author, with Mette Norgaard, of Touchpoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments (Jossey-Bass, May 2011).

Resources for Job-Hunting Seniors

By TOM LAURICELLA

The tough employment market of the past few years has been particularly hard on people age 55-plus. But older job seekers don't have to go it alone. A number of online tools -- as well as in-person training centers scattered across the country -- can provide support.

The hurdles that older adults face in finding work today are considerable. They include basic age discrimination, as well as rapid changes in information technology. The latter, in particular, have transformed not just the workplace, but the job search itself, leaving many older adults at a disadvantage.

Statistics show the need for a leveling of a playing field that's tilted against older workers. In 2010, among those aged 50 and over and out of work, more than 53% were unemployed for more than six months, according to government data analyzed by Richard Johnson, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. In contrast, 46% of jobless men ages 25 to 49 were out of work for more than six months.

Older workers "really have a hard time becoming re-employed," Mr. Johnson says.

To help older workers, the Department of Labor in 2009 awarded $10 million in grants to organizations in Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin. This new program, called the Aging Worker Initiative, is aimed at helping anyone 55 and older who is unemployed or underemployed -- earning, say, close to the minimum wage. (The list of program managers can be found by searching dol.gov for the Aging Workers Initiative.)

This effort is in addition to the long-standing Senior Community Service Employment Program. SCSEP offers a job-training program for those in low-income families and the unemployed.

The Aging Worker Initiative programs generally start with the basics, such as training older workers to be more tech-savvy. That includes showing them where to look for jobs online. One prominent example: careeronestop.org, the Department of Labor-sponsored website offering thousands of job listings nationwide.

More Advice and Complete WSJ Article

'Are You There God? It's Me, Jobless'

Shira Hirschman Weiss

Last Thursday, the Labor Department released data stating that the number of new unemployment applications is at its lowest since July 2008. While this indicates the economy is picking up speed, the news can either be a beacon of hope or salt rubbed into wounds for the presently unemployed. Faith is in a precarious perch for the religious and jobless. While some become despondent from repeated rejection and thwarted efforts, others cling to faith and turn fervently to prayer.

Deirdre McEachern is a career coach who says she sees clients "whose faith has been enhanced and re-affirmed by the job hunt." One of those clients, Jennifer Bindhammer, was a flight attendant with United in September 2011. "She came to me in early 2002 re-evaluating her life," explains McEachern. "We worked together for several months and in the process she reconnected strongly with her personal faith. Once she deciphered her life purpose, she felt as if God was opening doors for her -- helpful coincidences kept appearing -- like the sign she spotted on a subway platform advertising an MBA program." This literal and figurative 'sign' led the flight attendant to pursue her MBA.

In the process of contemplating the switch to a corporate profession, Bindhammer -- no stranger to the friendly skies -- turned to the heavens. "I enjoyed flying and I enjoyed my job, she writes in a testimonial, "It just wasn't the challenge that I wanted it to be, and realized that I needed to be challenged. When I thought about changing careers, I prayed about it -- I actively prayed."
Bindhammer followed her passion, received her MBA and kept praying. She is now working with an international air transport consultancy that focuses on aviation.

While the former flight attendant's faith was reaffirmed, Fiona (not her real name) reflects on how she sunk into a deep depression when she was laid off from a Public Relations start-up during the late 90s "dot bomb" era. She stopped praying and began spending Friday nights at local bars instead of the synagogue. She could have benefitted from an organization like Project Ezrah, had it been around at the time. The North Jersey based organization was founded in 2001 to aid members of the Jewish community (and now helps Jews and non-Jews alike) who were suffering from the hardships of unemployment.

Rabbi Yossie Stern, Executive Director of Project Ezrah, has seen individuals like Fiona who have been turned off to the synagogue experience, who are angry with God, and who are depressed about their situation to the point of losing faith. His organization has put together programs to help those who feel despondent. Notably, it developed initiatives to professionally retrain unemployed baby boomers.

"When your brother is impoverished, you have to be able to empower him to be self sufficient," he explains, "The highest form of charity is being able to afford someone a job, to help him achieve the same sense of self-esteem and quality of life that you have." His organization provides a wide range of services including a popular job board, career counseling services, financial counseling, mental health counseling, job training, and "in the box and out of the box services. We try to provide it all," Stern says. There is also a LinkedIn group that includes seminars on how to use social networking to find a career and much more. "We empower people to network, which is the best way to find employment."

Fiona eventually found her way back to a public relations career and to the synagogue, but admits that she felt at odds with her faith when things were uncertain: "I didn't feel it was God's fault," she explains, "It was related to a sudden, dark depression, which came about from my unemployment." And which, she admits, also may have been related to the fact that she was in a bad relationship at the time. "When life is unstable, it contributes to the instability of unemployment." Rabbi Stern stresses that it is critical that spouses be encouraging and not place blame due to unemployment. He emphasizes that a support system and building of confidence is essential to one's job hunt.

While Fiona received counseling for her depression, she realized she needed to make significant efforts to find a new job. "The Hebrew word Hishtadlut kept flashing through my head," she says. Hishtadlut means that one must make their own efforts. It relates to the universal concept of "God only helps those who help themselves."

Read the rest of the Huffington Post article

Jim Stroud demos Linkedin Signal and how to use it to find job leads.

This episode marks the end of season 1 of The Jim Stroud Show. Subscribe now to get updates on the next season. (Scroll down for more jobhunting resources.)

More Jim Stroud Advice @
the Recruiters Lounge

11 Reasons Why Every College Student Needs a LinkedIn Page

by K. Walsh

While in college, students worry about having enough money for tuition, what to major in, finding time to study, and passing mid-terms and finals. Having a LinkedIn page is probably far from their mind. But it shouldn’t be! LinkedIn is a valuable tool in their arsenal for helping them to establish their career.

It is important to remember that LinkedIn is your professional face to the business world. It is not like Facebook or YouTube. Don’t post goofy pictures, be silly, or say inappropriate things. Put your best foot forward. You are creating your own personal branding and this is your sales letter (about you) to future employers and to the world.
With that in mind, here are 11 reasons why every student needs to join LinkenIn:

Build your professional network. It’s never too early to start building a network with people in your career area. Start by linking to classmates who are in your major. While they are friends and classmates now, in the future they become business referrals. Ask professors who are in LinkedIn to write a recommendation for you. Linking to professors ensure that you will stay connected to them after you graduate. This could be beneficial.
Check out career paths. Find people who are in LinkedIn who are already employed in your desired profession. Check out their profiles to see what they have done to become successful. See if you can incorporate something from their career path into yours.
Prepare for interviews. When you have a job or internship interview, review the profile of the person who will interview you. Having this background knowledge during the interview will help impress the interviewer.
Get referrals. Networking is all about who you know and who those people know. If there is someone in LinkedIn that you would like to meet, ask a mutual acquaintance to for an introduction.
Land internships or jobs while in school. Is there a company that you would like to work for or an internship that interests you? LinkedIn can help you find a common connection to someone at that place of business.
Gain connections from conference attendees. When you meet new acquaintances at a conference that you attend as a student, chances are you do not have a business card to share. Nor do other students. LinkedIn is the perfect place to maintain a connection to those people once you have returned back to school.

Tips 7 - 11 and complete article

Top 10 Tips For Building A Strong LinkedIn Profile

Author Jay Markunas

Top ten tips for building a strong profile from LinkedIn:

1. Don’t cut-and-paste your resume. You wouldn’t hand out your resume before introducing yourself. Describe your experience and abilities as you would to someone you just met.

2. Borrow from the best marketers. Use specific adjectives, colorful verbs, active construction (ie..”managed project team” instead of “responsible for project team”).

3. Write a personal tagline. It’s the first thing people see in your profile. It follows your name in search hit lists.

4. Put your elevator pitch to work. The more meaningful your summary is, the more time visitors will spend on your profile.

5. Point out your skills. The Specialties field is your personal search engine optimizer when Recruiters are looking for candidates.

Tips 6 - 10 + Graphic + Complete Article

10 Tips for Effectively Using Your LinkedIn Status Update

By Careerealism

One of the features of LinkedIn that tends to be underutilized is the "Status Update" (also called your "Network Update") in your LinkedIn Profile. Your status update "block" is a white box located just below your picture on your "View My Profile" page. If you don't see such a block, then you've not posted a status update.

From your LinkedIn home page or your "Edit My Profile" page, you can change your status update as frequently as you desire. EVERY time you update your status, the home page of ALL of your network connections is "pinged" with your status update. Status updates are also distributed to your network via email when LinkedIn sends you your weekly "Network Update." Your latest status update is always displayed on your LinkedIn profile.

Your status updated is limited to 140 characters - just like Twitter - so keep that in mind, particularly when cutting and pasting information into your status update "window."

Updating your LinkedIn status is a great way to communicate to your network on a frequent and ongoing basis. I update my status at least once each day with different types of information. 10 tips for effectively using your status update to distribute useful information are presented below:

1. Insert the title and a "shortened" URL link to one of your recent blog articles. Bit.ly is a great resource for shortening URL's.

2. Insert the title and a "shortened" URL to a blog article you read and really liked. Particularly one that is timely, informative and relates to your "brand" or area of specialty in some way.

3. A link to a newsworthy web posting or news item. Include the title and a shortened URL. Alignment with you brand "voice" or area of specialty makes it more powerful. I like to focus on POSITIVE news as opposed to negative news.

4. A great "quote of the day." A great source of quotes of to search the #quote "hashtag" on Twitter. Since Twitter updates are limited to 140 characters, you'll find quotes that fit the LinkedIn status update window.

5. A brief piece of advice relevant to your brand or area of specialty.

For tips 6 -10 Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/25992/20110420/10-tips-for-effectively-using-your-linkedin.htm#ixzz1KAIhhxml

How Non-Profits Can Maximize Engagement on Facebook

by Zachary Sniderman

he Facebook Marketing Series is supported by Buddy Media. Eight of the world’s top ten brands use the Buddy Media Platform to power their social marketing on Facebook. Find out why here.

It’s important for any digitally-minded non-profit to be on Facebook because of the sheer number of active users. So, great — you set up a Facebook account for your organization. Now what?
Best practices are pretty variable when it comes to social media. This is especially true with Facebook, which switches up its appearance, services and features every few months. We did our best to put together some of the best approaches for non-profits, with some serious help from three social media mavericks at top causes.

Read on for some dos, don’ts, and a golden rule or two for how non-profits can better utilize Facebook.

How Facebook Can Help You

“We have to remember that Facebook was not made for non-profits,” says Danielle Brigida, the digital media marketing manager at the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). “Unlike Twitter, it is very hard for an organization to foster any individual relationships on Facebook, and it is almost best used as a discussion tool or for broadcasting.”
This certainly doesn’t preclude the ability to have conversations with your audience. However, the format does change how and what your audience will respond to. A question about IT staffing on Facebook may result in crickets, but that question would perform well on LinkedIn, says Holly Ross, executive director of the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN). “But if we ask our Facebook group what kind of music we should add to our hold lines, we’ll get twenty responses in an hour.” Ross sees NTEN’s Facebook community as a virtual water cooler — great engagement is about knowing what your community wants from your various social media profiles.

Golden Rules of Facebook for Non-Profits

“Ask open ended questions and use [Facebook] as a two-way street,” says Brooke McMillan, Livestrong‘s online community manager. “Always stoke conversation between you and the fan as well as fan-to-fan. We’ve seen some of the most supportive comments in the fan-to-fan relationship.” McMillan has helped build a vibrant online support community on Livestrong’s Facebook page, which has become a key component of Livestrong’s online identity. On the tech side, McMillan recommends posting at least once a day or as often as your organization has fresh content.

For Brigida (NWF), her golden rule is actually the age-old golden rule: “I engage with people how I want to be treated on Facebook,” Brigida said. “I don’t post things that will not engage our members … or overshare.” The NWF has specific audience pages — for photographers, teachers, gardeners and more — which Brigida targets from message to message. Understand that your community may be interested in different facets of your organization and tailor your posts to those niches.

Definitely Do Not Do These Things

Our experts honed in on two major non-profit no nos: lack of purpose and being too promotional.
“You have to have a reason to be on Facebook,” says Ross (NTEN). “Are you recruiting volunteers? Cultivating activists? Stewarding your donors? You won’t find any success in Facebook if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish.” McMillan echoed this, urging non-profits to keep their site active and their audiences engaged.

The other unfortunate truth is that no one really likes press releases. You don’t like writing them or receiving them, and your fans will get turned off by boilerplate messages. That said, your fans do want updates and information about your success and new campaigns. Ross recommends writing a post specifically for Facebook rather than copy/pasting a release. Adds McMillan: “In the [non-profit] world we often have really great studies and scientific papers that we want to share, but the general public doesn’t necessarily want to read an abstract for a research study — snoozeville.”

Find a way to deliver this information in an engaging way and your Facebook fans will reward you by actually reading it.

Trade Secrets - Read The Rest Of The Mashable Article To Find Out

5 Twitter Job Services For Some Real-Time Job Search

by Saikat Basu

Twitter may not merit a serious look as a job hunting and recruitment tool. But that’s something a fresher or even an experienced professional will be ill advised to overlook. You can bet that when Twitter increasingly has the power to spread revolutions, it can be a vital ally of your job hunting campaign.
In its overreaching popularity lies its job hunting prowess. Companies are increasingly using it spread their updates. Vacancies and recruitment’s are just one of them.
Even if you do a simple search for a job lead on Twitter, you will be surprised at the number of links that total up. I am not even telling you to do an advanced Twitter search or develop industry specific social strategy. We are talking here of Twitter services that do the job of distilling relevant job tweets for you so that you can find jobs on Twitter.
Here are five of them.

Tweet My Jobs

Somehow the image on this Twitter job app says it all. It is probably the largest Twitter job board on the web. The About page says that they have 10,052 vertical job channels segmented by geography, job type, and industry. The service is used by people on both sides of the table, the recruiters as well as the job seekers. It is free for job seekers. As a job seeker, you can sign-up and subscribe to a channel of your interest. Any news jobs available are sent as instant notifications as a Twitter feed or on your mobile. Beyond this, you can use the service like a regular job site: post your resume to companies or forward jobs to friends. Using TweetMap, a Google Maps mashup, you can geographically target jobs of your interest.

TwitJobSearch

This Twitter job search engine is another well designed and maintained service which could be the answer to your job search prayers. You can instantly sign-in with your Twitter account and start a hunt. The site allows you to save jobs to your account, have an online resume, and network. Creating a profile on this web service involves some fine-detailing as recruiters see what has been posted. You can also link the public LinkedIn URL or any other online CV you might have. The Advanced Search is just one way to trawl through Twitter job updates. For an industry specific browse, you can go to the directory which lists ‘Job Accounts’ for selected countries. Using the Job Map, you can visually see the jobs that have been tweeted about in the last 72 hours. The site also has a free iPhone app.

Job Shouts

The easiest way to get the dope on the latest job postings collected by this site is via Twitter. JobShouts.com is a social search tool for jobs across many job boards that include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. All jobs are screened by the site, so the potential to hit the genuine ones is much higher for the job seeker.

Sites 4 - 5 and Complete Article

Social Networking for Career Success - LinkedIn tips from a recruiter

by Miriam Salpeter

I was so excited to learn yesterday that Sheryl Posnick, the editor in charge of my book at Learning Express, LLC, received the first copies back from the printer! I can’t wait to see the final version. It’s perfect timing, as I was just ramping up to share some tips here.

One thing I did when I wrote Social Networking for Career Success is tap my network of friends and colleagues to share advice and insights. While, in most (not all), cases, I could have written those sections myself, it made sense to me to provide an array of opinions — and, if they agreed with me (or I with them), all the better! When I headed up the career area at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health, one frustrating thing was how students could listen to me tell them something over and over again, but it wasn’t until I invited a hiring manager or recruiter in to say the same thing that they adapted their job search strategies. I figured the same point holds true with readers: having me tell you, “Do this, follow this advice” may be helpful, but backing it up with 100 other insights is even better!

In that spirit, and to start highlighting the terrific colleagues who contributed to the book, today I am happy to have permission to share insights from Craig Fisher (@FishDogs on Twitter) from his post today about LinkedIn. Be sure to read the full post with LinkedIn tips (from a recruiter), but here are some highlights:

- What should you have on your LinkedIn profile if you’re looking for opportunities? A candidate should tell a good story that describes who they are and what they do well. You also need detailed job descriptions in your work history going back at least 10 years. The more relevant detail and specific keywords that you include in your profile, the easier it will be for recruiters and employers to find you when they search for appropriate candidates for their openings.

- What are some LinkedIn tools that you should be using? Use the apps available on your profile page to import content into your page. Apps that automatically import your blog posts, SlideShare presentations, etc. help your profile to rank higher in search results. The idea is to get more eyeballs on your Linkedin profile. Also update your status once or twice per day with something that would be interesting to your targeted employers or prospects.

- Are there any mistakes or misconceptions about this method of job searching? The top misconception is that if you just create a Linkedin profile, then you should get calls from employers or recruiters. Not so. You must optimize your profile with plenty of specific information that relates to your skill set; and participate in Linkedin groups, Q&A, and status updates. You must also grow your network. The more active you are, and the more people you connect with, the more people will see your profile.

More Advice and Complete Article

Older Job Seeker:Does Social Media Confuse You?

7 Secrets to Get a Job Using Social Media - do you know them?

Editors Note: Tooth Fairy, Santa Clause, The Baby Stalk and mailing resumes to HR. As an older worker do you ever feel that all the good fantasies are dead? What do you think?

Between current economic conditions and the technological evolution of the Internet, the traditional approach most job seekers have taken in the past is no longer viable.

The approach — developing a resume and cover letter, locating jobs on and submitting your resume to corporate sites and job banks, and crossing your fingers in hopes of receiving a call from a hiring manager — is, for the most part, a thing of the past. The new approach is far different. It boils down to the fact that there are fewer jobs available, more competition for those jobs and more touch points for recruiters and seekers to interact.

The current environment

There will be 1.5 million college graduates this year, yet the job growth rate is at a six year low, at 1.3%! The amount of jobs posted online is decreasing at over 13%, which has all led to the ratio of 3.3 job seekers per each job.

Social networks are starting to become part of the criteria that both hiring managers and college admissions officers are using to weed out applicants. One in five hiring managers conduct background checks using social networks (primarily Facebook), while one in ten college admissions officers do the same.

It’s time for you to be open-minded and think differently about how you’re going to get your next job and keep it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t submit your resume to job banks, corporate websites, vertical job agents (Simply Hired/Indeed) or attend job fairs, but these should only consume 10% of your time. The other 90% should be concentrated on the following seven social media secrets, which will not only get you a job, but help you create your own dream job!

1. Conduct a people search instead of a job search

The majority of jobs aren’t posted online. Hiring managers get a list of employee referral candidates before they even bother to view resumes from those who submit them online. Sometimes the listed jobs aren’t available or never existed in the first place. Many studies have noted that 80% of jobs are taken through networking, but few have sought to use the web to search and locate people they would actually enjoy working for at companies that they get excited about.

The 3-step people search:

1. Identify the top five companies that you would like to work for.
Use a focused approach instead of flooding thousands of inboxes with spam. You want to brand yourself, not just as the person of best fit for a job, but as someone who is eager and ecstatic to work for the company.

2. Use search engines to track employees that currently work there.
There are over 130 million blogs in Technorati and you can search through them to possibly find someone who works at one of your top five companies. You can search through corporate groups, pages and people on Facebook. You can even do the same on Twitter. Then there are people search engines such as pipl, peek you, and wink. Once you find a contact name, try googling it to see if there is any additional information about that person.

3. Connect with the person directly.
Social media has broken down barriers, to a point where you can message someone you aren’t friends with and don’t have contact information for, without any hassles. Before you message a target employee, realize that they receive messages from people asking for jobs all the time and that they might not want to be bothered on Facebook, where their true friends are. As long as you’ve done your homework on the company and them, tailor a message that states who you are and your interest, without asking for a job at first. Get to know them and then by the 3rd or 4th messages, ask if there is an available opportunity.

2. Use attraction-based marketing to get job offers

The traditional way of searching for a job was proactive, forcing you to start a job that you might not have enjoyed. The new approach is about building a powerful personal brand and attracting job opportunities directly into your doorstep. How do you do this? You become a content producer instead of just a consumer and the number one way to do that on the web is to launch a blog that centers around both your expertise and passions.

You need to be passionate to be committed to this project because it requires a lot of writing, creativity and consistency in order for it to actually help you. A blog is a non-intrusive, harmless and generous way of getting recruiters interested in your brand, without you even asking for a job! Make the recruiters fall in love with you and only send you opportunities that are related to your blog content, so you end up happy in the end.

This works a lot and is expected for new-age marketing jobs that require experience in social media and can even help you jump-start a new business off of your blog platform. By pulling recruiters into your world, you are able to impress them with what you want them to see and they can make a quick decision whether to hire you or not, without you hearing about rejection. Start a blog today using Wordpress.com (for beginners) or install Wordpress.org onto your own host (such as GoDaddy or Bluehost).
Click here to read part 2 of this article

Banks woo youth with social media

Robert Cartwright drives a company car. He has a laptop, iPhone and video camera paid for by this employer, and rarely spends time in the Bridgeton headquarters of Vantage Credit Union.

Instead, Cartwright is often online where he chats with 'fans' on social networking site Facebook, posts videos on YouTube, microblogs to 'followers' on Twitter, and does the kind of stuff you'd expect from a 26-year-old.

But he's not goofing off. Cartwright is spokesman for the credit union's youth marketing program, a key effort to win the financial business of the young demographic group Gen Y.

Vantage and many competing financial institutions are connecting with their next generation of customers by speaking their language -- social media -- and reaching them on smartphones.

"This age group, Generation Y, it's what we're on all the time," Cartwright said.

Several banks are also rolling out new accounts specifically geared to Gen Y, with no fees if they get their statements online and deposit checks electronically instead of visiting a bank branch.

The group's age range varies, but it generally includes teenagers up to 32-year-olds. It was dubbed "Y" after following Generation X -- typically defined as those ages 33 to 46 -- that succeeded the baby boomer generation.

The focus on youth is a way to build brand loyalty for future banking relationships, bankers say. In 2010, Gen Y's personal income, $2.4 trillion, accounted for one fifth of the total personal income in the U.S., according to Javelin Strategy & Research, a California-based financial services research firm. By 2025, when the last of the employed boomers draw closer to retirement age, Gen Y will account for 46 percent of personal income.

Financial institutions have been slow to use social media, because of regulatory and privacy issues. That's beginning to change as they realize that social media and smartphones are the main way to reach this coveted demographic, which prefers to 'tweet' or text instead of visiting a bank branch. Banks are primarily using social media for marketing and connecting with customers instead of account activity.

"Gen Y is influenced more by the comments of their peers than traditional advertising" such as TV and radio ads, said Jay Sinha, an associate professor of marketing and supply chain management at the Fox School of Business at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Financial institutions are following the lead of consumer products companies such as Adidas and Victoria's Secret that have used social media to increase sales, he noted.

"It adds positive cache to a brand, provided that it's not crass commercialism. Gen Y is really turned off by that," Sinha said.

To make sure Vantage's marketing message gets out, Cartwright posts dozens of Facebook and Twitter messages a week, showing up at baseball games and movie theaters that he tells his hundreds of online followers about and giving out free tickets and gift cards. He writes five blog posts a week on his website, youngfreestlouis.com and creates videos he posts to YouTube with tips on saving money and other topics.

"Most college kids are really bad with their money," he said. "I wish something like this would have been around when I was 18." Vantage Credit Union, which has 15 branches, hired Cartwright last year as its first "Young & Free" spokesman.

The job, which pays $30,000, lasts a year. In June, Vantage will begin the search for the next spokesperson. Cartwright, who has a degree in education, got the job after he created and posted an audition video online that was voted on by the public.

The program has paid off for Vantage, says Executive Vice President Eric Acree. Since last summer, 2,500 customers have enrolled in its account geared to 18- to 25-year-olds, which offers free checking and additional benefits, and 40 percent of those are customers new to Vantage.

Read The Rest Of The St. Louis Today Article

Business networking start-up aims to break LinkedIn stranglehold

By Michelle Hammond

A new business-oriented social network has launched in an attempt to break the increasing stranglehold of LinkedIn, which has hit two million users in Australia alone.
The new entrant, titled WhenTheMeetingsOver.com, was born from the founding member’s frustration at being unable to connect with like-minded people while away on business, not only on a professional level but on a social level as well.

Based in the United Kingdom, WTMO chief executive Stuart Dawson says the site provides an environment to “epitomise our time online”.

“It’s not designed for the Facebook generation of soul-baring wall writers, but for professionals that require a purpose-built social network to enhance their work/life balance,” he says.

However, Foad Fadaghi, research director of market analyst firm Telsyte, predicts it will become increasingly difficult for new entrants to compete with the likes of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

“Maybe the horse has bolted in the sense that the big guys have shown their market dominance,” he says.

Fadaghi estimates around 40% of professionals in Australia use LinkedIn.

“There are many non professionals on the site as well... LinkedIn has the critical mass that other sites don’t have,” Fadaghi says.

Read the rest of the StartUpSmart article

When Your Dream Company Is Hiring on Twitter

More companies are launching Twitter handles specifically to lure job applicants

By Alexis Grant

As more companies warm to the idea of recruiting on Twitter, the world of tweets, at symbols, and hashtags is becoming populated with a new kind of handle: usernames created specifically to lure applicants. And for job seekers, that means opportunity.

Think @HersheyCareers, @JobsatGates (by the Gates Foundation), @GEconnections, and @xboxjobs. Recruiters behind these handles—that's Twitterspeak for username on the social networking site—say interacting there helps them find talented candidates who aren't necessarily looking for a job and makes their company more appealing to applicants who are already in the running for positions. Spin that 180 degrees, and you've got a way for job seekers to connect directly with hiring managers, gain valuable insight about companies they want to work for, and even hear about openings before they're listed on over-crowded job boards.

"It's a fun way to interact that acts as a reminder for both parties that there's a real person in that recruiter role or at the other end of that resume," says Christopher Hoyt, who works on social recruiting strategies for PepsiCo and is one of the voices behind @PepsiCoJOBS. "[Candidates] are looking for confirmation that their resume doesn't just go into a black hole." PepsiCo launched the jobs handle about six months ago, Hoyt says, and it drives more traffic to the company's careers portal than LinkedIn or Facebook.

Many jobs-specific handles are new and have only a few hundred followers. But some organizations have made growing their jobs handle nearly as important as the company's main Twitter handle. Take Twitter itself: @JoinTheFlock, which launched in early 2010, has more than 94,000 followers, an impressive number by Twitter standards. (It helps, of course, that Twitter is a sought-after place to work among the tech community.)

More than half of human resources professionals now use social networking tools to source potential job candidates, according to a new poll from the Society for Human Resource Management. That's up from a third in 2008. But the majority of organizations focus recruiting efforts on LinkedIn. Of those who use social media for recruiting, 95 percent use LinkedIn, 58 percent use Facebook, and 42 percent use Twitter, the organization reports.

More Information and Complete USNews Article

9 Best Mobile Apps for Finding a Job

By Amy Levin-Epstein

Job application apps and other online tools have officially gone viral. Never before has it been easier to keep track of jobs and contacts on the go. A great example is the old standby, Monster.com, which now has apps for the iPhone, Droid, and iPad that allow you to keep your job search — including resume, cover letter, and listings — with you at all times. Because if you’re hunting for a job, the last thing you want to do is to be a day late — and possibly a job short — just because you missed a posting.
Here are eight others I hope you’ll find helpful. Got more? Please share them in the comments section.

Jobs by Careerbuilder App
What it does: Lets you find and apply for jobs right from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. So if you’re out networking (or taking a coffee break from your job search), you won’t miss a single opportunity.

Indeed.com
What it does: Indeed gives you free access to millions of postings from both job boards and company websites — plus, you can have your personalized searches delivered right to your iPhone or Droid.

Jibber Jobber
What it does: This online organization tool helps you keep track of everything related to your job search, including where you applied and who the contact person is for each position. If your email inbox is a “work-in-progress”, this can help you avoid missing opportunities.

SnapDat
What it does: This free download quickly creates and sends digital business cards from your iPhone to your new contact’s email.

LinkedIn Mobile
What it does: Whereas some of these other apps are limited to the iPhone or Droid, LinkedIn Mobile is also accessible on the Blackberry, Palm, and others. So next time you’re in an interview and get surprised with a second introduction, you can quickly view the new interviewer’s page, scout any connections, and put together some talking points on the fly.

Apps 5 - 9 and Complete MoneyWatch Article

25 Habits to Break if You Want a Job

by Hannah Morgan

This post is one of many Career Collective posts by career and resume experts on Job-hunting “Rules” to Break/ Outdated Job-Search Beliefs . I am honored to be part of this group and want to thank Miriam Salpeter, of Keppie Careers, and Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, of Career Trend, for coordinating this initiative now on its second year. You will find links to the other expert posts at the bottom. I highly encourage you to read them all and bookmark them for future reference or sharing with friends and family. If you are on Twitter, you can see our community by following #careercollective.
This advice goes out to new job seekers as well as seasoned job seekers. It comes from those who have been in job search and have learned through the school of hard knocks. These are the top 25 habits to break, or not fall into, if you want to land a job quickly:

Only apply for jobs online
Use the same resume for every job you apply to
Don’t network or meet new people
Don’t ask your friends and family for information
Complain about being unemployed
Bad mouth your previous employer
Don’t target companies, apply to anything anywhere
Ask everyone you know for a job
Don’t take time to assess your strengths and passion
Don’t research salaries
Don’t follow up on anything
Don’t do anything differently
Stay away from LinkedIn and social media

See all 25 habits to break and complete article

Using Twitter For Career Networking

Evan Britton, ResourceWebs

There is an enormous amount of activity happening on Twitter each minute. This activity opens up endless opportunities for businesses, marketers, and individuals. One rarely talked about strategy for utilizing Twitter’s widespread popularity is the seeking out of career connections on Twitter.

Many career experts discuss how to get hired from LinkedIn and how to find a job on Facebook; and while these continue to be solid job searching options, countless job seekers are already doing this. One advantage of taking to Twitter for your career networking and job search quest is that you will be differentiating yourself and potentially giving yourself a chance to stand out from the crowd.

The first thing you should do is clean up your Twitter profile. Make sure that your Twitter profile picture is a good head shot of yourself and also make sure your Twitter user name is professional. You can easily change your Twitter user name if you don't feel it is appropriate for potential employers. Lastly, make sure your bio talks about the sector for which you are seeking work.

Your Twitter updates should include relevant Tweets about your industry. It is of course ok if some of your Tweets are personal, but it is wise to Tweet about your industry and job sector as it will show your passion and interest in your craft. You should also Retweet others who post updates about your niche.

Read The Rest Of The Article and more: http://www.businessinsider.com/using-twitter-for-career-networking-2011-4#ixzz1IZYzV41w

6 new LinkedIn updates you need to know about

Before discussing the new, exciting changes coming from LinkedIn, let’s define what LinkedIn is:
LinkedIn is really a huge database of professionals. Unlike other social networks, like Twitter, which lacks profile depth, or Facebook, which is all over the place demographically and is also hard to find people, Linkedin standardizes information entered by users into predefined “Profile Headline”, “Summary”, “Education”, “Company”, etc. categories. In addition to this huge database of information, LinkedIn provides an awesome search tool to allow you to pinpoint the person you are looking for depending on a number of very specific factors.

I read an outstanding update about LinkedIn and 6 new LinkedIn updates and thought I would share

1. ‘LINKEDIN TODAY’ IS A NEW PAGE YOU SHOULD VISIT EVERY DAY: LinkedIn.com/today, a new mashup of LinkedIn and Twitter, is one of the most useful ways to start your mornings. As one of the new LinkedIn updates, it displays, in an easy-to-read, easy-to-share and easy-to-save manner, the most shared items among your LinkedIn contacts. It’s also broken up by industries you are interested in, which makes it even more useful professionally.

2. THE NEW RESUME BUILDER IS VERY USEFUL: One of my favorite new LinkedIn updates is the Resume Builder at resume.linkedinlabs.com. It takes your LinkedIn profile and creates an instant, customizable resume that you can save as a PDF or share on the web with privacy settings. There are several templates to choose from, including “classic,” “business,” “law” and more. Here’s my new resume, (which I haven’t done any editing or customization on yet); you can compare it to my LinkedIn profile at LinkedIn.com/in/sreenivasan. (A tip about the profile URL that I learned from LinkedIn’s Krista Canfield, who teaches journalists on using the service better: try to customize it with your full name, not just your last name — since that’s how LinkedIn’s search engine work. I need to fix mine).

3. LINKEDIN LABS HAS COOL FEATURES: LinkedIn’s experimental Labs page at LinkedInLabs.com, which hosts the Resume Builder, is filled with new things you’ll want to check out. Among them: InMaps at inmaps.linkedin.com, which makes visualizations of your network (see my wife’s above); Swarm at swarm.linkedinlabs.com, which shows you the most searched companies; Year In Review at yir.linkedinlabs.com, which shows you who among your connections changed jobs in a year; in 2009, 607 people in my network changed jobs; in 2010, 922 people did; so far 267 have done so in 2011).

Updates 4 - 6 and complete blackbox article

Job Hunting Secrets From A Top Recruiter

Jessica Stillman, BNET

As BNET’s sister site MoneyWatch pointed out recently, in a climate where it takes the average job hunter more than seven months to find their next position, big job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder are of only limited use.
The post’s author Eilene Zimmerman writes:

Forget CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and all the other mass job sites. While these boards seem like a good place to start, how many people do you know who actually found a job that way? Even hiring managers don’t want to sort through the hundreds and hundreds of resumes they get for each position they list on these sites, so they’re increasingly turning to industry-specific job portals, saysDebra Yergen, author of Creating Job Security.

And Zimmerman isn’t the only person pointing out that job boards are often a waste of time. Everyone from the WSJ to Ask the Headhunter’s Nick Corcodolis has written posts advising that there are probably more productive ways to spend most of your job search hours. But if job boards are on the wane, how are companies and recruiters finding people to hire? And how can you best position yourself to be found?

Writing on recruiting blog Fistful of Talent recently, Kelly Dingee, a “professional stalker” with Staffing Advisors, lets the cat out of the bag and offers up seven things employers should tell job seekers about how to get considered. Dingee isn’t convinced job boards are totally over saying, “there will be people looking for you on there.

At least for a little while longer.” But overall Dingee agrees with consensus opinion that too much time on job boards isn’t productive and offers tips to help you get hired in a post-job board world, including old standbys like networking — “Find someone who works at your targeted company who can pass your resume along” — as well as less well known advice:

Make yourself findable first. Google yourself right now. Did your LinkedIn profile come up? No? Build one, make it public. If you have a preferred method of contact, note it. Use inmails. Use a separate email.
Make yourself even more findable. Post your resume, or your bio, or whatever you want to call it. Use Posterous, use WordPress, use a .me site, use doctoc or slideshare… use something.

Top 10 Tips For Building A Strong LinkedIn Profile

How a LinkedIn title created a qualified lead

This guest post is by Jeremy Epstein, founder and chief marketing navigator at Never Stop Marketing. According to LinkedIn, he is member #146,795 … out of 100,000,000.
Frank sent me an unsolicited e-mail inquiring about my consulting services.
I had no idea who he was at all.
Being the (hopefully) good marketer that I am, I asked, “How did you hear about me?”
The answer shocked me. “I liked your title on LinkedIn.”
As he explained:
I found you kind of randomly. Michael R. accepted my LinkedIn invitation (I have known Mike probably 10+ years) and your name was 1st on his list of friends with the words “Marketing Navigator” by your name.
I found the title intriguing – especially because if Marketing Navigator meant what I hoped it meant, it would be exactly what we need.
It sounds like you could potentially really help us, and if I understand correctly, as your many testimonials suggest, you not only consult, but manage implementation.
Did you read that? A unique title caught his eye … and led to a qualified lead. Pretty low-cost marketing via LinkedIn.
Unfortunately, nondescriptive titles that don’t grab attention and tell stories to would-be connections are just one of the many ways that LinkedIn is completely underutilized.
Another big one is when LinkedIn is not used for pro-active, focused networking.
This has two sides to it.

First, it reflects poorly on you.
Second, you miss opportunities to grow your network.

Let’s take the first scenario.
I am frequently surprised (and frankly, mildly irritated) when people send an e-mail asking “do you know anyone at Company X?”
What this note communicates is that the person is lazy. Pretty much my whole network (and probably a good chunk of yours) is on LinkedIn (here’s the network map) and the person didn’t even bother to look.
The second can be illustrated with a recent example from my trip to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
As a committed networker, I have two rules when I travel for business.

Always see something that is unique to that city.
Always meet at least one new person in that city for each day I will be there.

Here’s how I (and you) can use LinkedIn to leverage your network and narrow your search.

First, I turned to LinkedIn and clicked on Advanced People Search. I put in the keyword “Brazil.” (Note: I did this two months before I went there.)
When I got the results, I sorted by “relationship.” I was looking for all of the first level connections. In other words, I could approach them directly.
I found 15 people who met the criteria of having some connection to Brazil. This was my initial target market.

That was half the battle. The next part was LinkedIn outreach. So, short and sweet, I went with this approach:
It’s been a while, but your name came up in a keyword search on LinkedIn. The keyword was “Brazil.” I’m going to Sao Paulo, Brazil, at the end of January and am looking to meet/network with

Entrepreneurs
Marketers
Technologists (particularly around the sugar cane/ethanol, but also IT)

I’m going to be there for a wedding, but figured I’d also just grab 20 mins for coffee to expand my horizons (and hopefully), provide some value in return. Do you have any contacts down there who might fit the bill?

The Results? Find out the results and read the complete article