5 effective and simple ways to find a job using social media

When looking for a job, many people still use online job boards such as Monster.com, Dice.com, CareerBuilder.com, etc… these are all great sites and they have a ton of tech related jobs in their sites. However, it is not a secret that just like you, many other people go to these sites to search for jobs as well, and the problem is that when you submit your resume to a company you are interested on, your resume will end up in some inbox somewhere, along with hundreds of resumes from other people interested in that same job.

With online social media, you have the advantage of  having the ability to connect directly with the person hiring for a specific position. It is also easier to differentiate yourself from others and establish a relationship with recruiters or HR people using any of the social media sites that are popular now.

Below are some tips on how to use these social media sites to find your next great job.

1. Listen to Twitter
   Go to Twitter.com and type the following in the search box “Austin tech jobs”. If you are interested on any of these jobs, just reply to the tweet and start the conversation. You can further filter the search results by typing something more specific in the search box such as “software developer, job, Austin”.
2. Use LinkedIn
   Click on the Job tab in LinkedIn and type something like “Austin software developer”, you’ll see many software development jobs in the results. The key of using LinkedIn effectively to find a job is to send messages to the person hiring, if it is not a connection, then ask for an introduction to someone connected to that person in your network. Another great way of connecting with people hiring in LinkedIn is to be part of a LinkedIn group where jobs that you are interested in are listed, this will be more likely a smaller subset of jobs and your chances of connecting with the right person will increase greatly.
3. Facebook, keep it clean
   Facebook doesn’t provide a great way of connecting with companies when looking for a job. However, it is very important to keep a clean and well-organized profile if you are serious about finding your next great job. Most companies will not consider hiring people who like posting photos of themselves partying… you know what I mean…
4. Everybody likes Video
   Create a video resume and upload it to YouTube. Try to make the video unique and engaging by speaking to the camera as if you where in a conversation. The cool thing about video is that you can add links to it in Twitter, LinkedIn, your own blog, etc… A good video resume is short and descriptive, talk about your experience and the value you will contribute to a given position and what you have to offer to the company that hires you.
5. Read blogs and leave comments
   This requires more effort and time but it is a great opportunity to make yourself visible to employees from companies hiring for positions you are interested on. For example, in the past I’ve gotten interviews for Microsoft just by leaving smart comments on Microsoft’s employees blogs. For this to be effective, you want to read blogs from people who work in the same company’s department or team that you are interested in applying for.

Hope this is helpful, please share with us any other ideas or tips you might have about this, the goal is to help people with their job search.