Job Search: Google+ As A Complement To LinkedIn

When it comes to social media and job hunting, everyone immediately thinks of LinkedIn and rightly so. A great LinkedIn profile (which we can accomplish for you here at The Imagemakers, Ink!)  can go a very long way towards giving a prospective employer a good overview of your skill sets and abilities. So while we can all agree that LinkedIn is a must, you should also be aware that there’s an up and comer that can help you in more ways than you may have thought of  when it comes to conducting a job search. Who’s the new guy? Well it’s Google+ and here’s how it can complement your LinkedIn Profile.

 In a word, “personality”, which when you think about it, is the one aspect that LinkedIn lacks with it’s Dragnet like “just the facts mam” way of doing things. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, it’s just not a complete picture of who you are and what you bring to the table.

I would argue that a well manicured Google+ profile (with smartly placed public posts and photos) can act as an complement to LinkedIn that can shine a little light on your fun side, intelligence and interests that LinkedIn has a hard time with because of it’s obvious “business” mission. Of course when I say “well manicured” I’m talking about a public profile and posts that stay away from controversy and nonsense (save those posts for your “close friends” circle) and that paint a positive picture of you to anyone on the outside looking in.

In the case of job hunting that would be any HR professional or decision maker who Googles you (and yes, they do Google you) looking to find out more about you other than just what’s contained in your LinkedIn profile. Add to that the fact that Google+ is tightly integrated into the rest of the Google ecosystem (Google docs and other business tools as well as it’s own cool features) and I believe that it can be a very real complement to LinkedIn when “they” go searching…and trust me…”they” will. So give them some fun stuff! Give them some intelligent stuff! Give them some interesting stuff!

Who knows, it may be just the right “stuff” that gets you the job!

~Stu

Are You Relevant In Today’s Job Market?

Linda Lupatkin, Career Counselor, Coach and Consultant

Last week the University of Colorado announced it would be closing its School of Journalism. Among the reasons cited by board members, the rapidly changing technological landscape, a dynamic media marketplace and the Journalism School’s failure to adapt. In other words, the program is no longer relevant in today’s market.

This begs the question, are you relevant? Are you embracing today’s technology and harnessing its power both on the job and if you’re in the midst of a career transition. If you’re not, you’re missing the boat.

There’s a world of opportunity and it’s just a mouse click away. Every day I talk to clients who fail to comprehend the incredibly useful tools that are available to them on the Web.  I have to educate and advocate on the usefulness of the Internet and in particular social media. Tools like LinkedIn, Twitter and Google alerts can dramatically reduce the time of your job search.

For some, they’ve signed up with LinkedIn, built a profile and then say nothing’s happening. Well, that’s like joining a gym, hopping on the exercise bike and then not pedaling. Just putting your profile on LinkedIn is not enough, the next step is fully utilizing its capability… expanding your network, using advanced searches to find companies in which you’re interested and then reaching out to your contacts to network into those companies.

With Twitter you can follow companies and see if they’re doing something that will create an opportunity for you. For instance, if the company posts that it won a new contract, that means it may be expanding what better reason to reach out to that company, regardless of whether they have posted openings or not.

You can use this same technique by setting up Google alerts using key words and the specific geography you may be interested in targeting. The majority of people land positions by utilizing these creative approaches to mine the unpublished or hidden job market rather than by relying solely on advertised job postings.

The Web is not just about job boards and your job search shouldn’t be either. In today’s competitive market you need to have a comprehensive approach fully utilizing the tools available to you on the Internet. In other words, if you want to succeed in today’s job market, or even in today’s world, you must remain relevant.

Linda