Why YOU should get on it:

1. Establish Credibility – Having an account will allow potential employers to look up your profile to learn information not necessarily on your resume. You can add skills to your profile, which people in your network can then endorse, showing employers that other people also value your abilities. Also, employers can see your connections with companies, people, and professional associations, which can build a well-rounded appearance.
2. Build a Professional Network – LinkedIn allows you to connect with professionals within your field, whether you know them or not, with prior or current employers and coworkers, as well as classmates. Many of these connections can speak to your abilities, and may be able to give you professional advice or provide a connection for a potential job opportunity.
3. Learn about Companies – Use LinkedIn when you are applying for jobs or are preparing for interviews to learn about the company and the people who work there, to show you have done your homework. Or research companies and you may find awesome job opportunities, or make new connections. You can even use your connections to ask questions about companies that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to during an interview, such as, “Did/Do you like working for the company?” or “What do you dislike about your work?”
4. Discover New Opportunities – Your network (people and companies) have tons of knowledge just waiting to be called upon. You can start a discussion feed or create an update asking for opportunity information. Also, the more connections you make, the broader your network will get and the greater possibility for opportunities to arise when you aren’t even looking for them.
5. To be Found – It is nice to be able to be found by potential employers online, especially when you are building your network, and when you are prepared to make a great impression. Most of us would much rather an employer find our LinkedIn account than our Facebook or Twitter accounts, even if you have them private, or manage your content.

If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, you should definitely think about making one, especially since you will only benefit from it, and it doesn’t take much time to create or manage. LinkedIn provides many training tutorials to help you get started!

Posted by Sami Kerzel, Career Services Assistant

Michelle V. Rafter from the SecondAct blog wrote a great article about using Pinterest to get a job. See the 10 tips below….

You might think of Pinterest as another way to kill time online when you should be doing something more important. Millions of early adopters put the 2-year-old social network on the map doing just that — sharing pictures of cute outfits, cool home interiors and exotic travel destinations.

Now that 11.7 million people and companies are using it, though, Pinterest is emerging as an online tool that job seekers can use to market themselves and explore potential careers, industries and employers.

Pinterest lets you save photos or images from news stories, blog posts or other online content in the form of pins that are organized into folders called boards. You can follow other people and re-pin, comment or “Like” their pins. You also can link your Pinterest boards to your accounts on Facebook or Twitter.

“If you’re in a creative or design field, it’s an amazing place to build a portfolio or create a visual resume,” says Annie Favreau, managing editor at InsideJobs.com, a career exploration website.

Here’s how to use Pinterest for a job search:

1. Optimize your Pinterest profile. Adjust account settings to allow your profile to appear in results of searches on Google and other search engines. Load your profile description with keywords that match the job you want. Include a recent photograph and links to your website or LinkedIn profile so potential employers can learn more about you. Here’s one example of a Pinterest resume, from a Harvard Business School student who hopes it’ll lead to a job with the online network.

2. Set up an online resume and portfolio. Gather samples of your work onto one or more boards to use as an online resume. Don’t get cute with labels; call your resume board “My Resume” or something similar so it’s easy to find. Pinterest is especially useful if you work in photography, architecture, interior design or other creative fields, “because it has this strong emphasis on the visuals. It’s one more access point into your work,” Favreau says. But anyone can use the site to create an online portfolio. Just make sure that the resume or portfolio you’re linking back to has an image you can pin. This San Francisco Chronicle story shares how one Bay Area marketing manager uses Pinterest to showcase his current and previous jobs.

3. Dedicate a board to careers you’re curious about. If you’re searching for your next act, use Pinterest to find information on jobs or careers. Use the search box — located in the upper left-hand corner of the site’s front page — to enter related words or phrases. Pin anything that comes up that you want to save for future reference.

4. Create boards for companies or industries you’d like to know better. Pinterest can give you a glimpse into a company’s culture that you can’t get from reading their “About Us” page, Favreau says. “If they’re sharing Instagram pictures of their office, you won’t find that a whole lot of other places,” she says.

5. Follow experts. Keep up with employment trends by following the university career centers, jobs websites, outplacement specialists and career coaches that have set up shop on Pinterest. SecondAct has a board dedicated to all things work-related called Get a Job. I’ve also created a Job Hunting and Careers board with pointers to my stories here and other resources. Favreau also recommends following Career Bliss, BrazenCareerist, and Lea McLeod, a Portland, Ore., career expert who works with midcareer and other professionals.

6. Leave comments. Strike up a conversation with a career expert or someone who works in a field you’re interested in by commenting on one of their pins. As with any other type of online or real-world networking, you never know where it could lead.

7. Wander around. Do some browsing to see what’s out there. “If you’re constantly coming back to the same area, or something keeps popping out at you, if might be worth exploring” as a career option, Favreau says. She also recommends using the site as a mental boost for your job-hunting efforts, and created a Career Inspirations board for that reason.

8. Protect your work. If you’re sharing photography or other original work on your boards, use watermarks to protect individual images just as you would when displaying them on other websites. You want your work to be out there, but it pays to be on your guard, Favreau says.

9. Be professional. If all you do on Pinterest is share pictures of puppies, think twice about sharing your Pinterest profile with potential employers. “But if you are using it for a job search, it is an impression of who you are, so when you’re creating your boards, make sure they line up with your professional appearance,” she says.

10. Watch out for spammers. The bigger Pinterest grows, the more spammers it’s attracting. To prevent unwittingly passing along spam disguised as a normal pin, be sure to click through on images to see where they lead before re-pinning them. Don’t click on pins that look like ads or giveaways, which Pinterest doesn’t offer or condone. Here’s what else you can to do to avoid Pinterest spammers.

A final word about Pinterest: It can be extremely habit-forming. “I set myself to short periods of time, like 15 minutes, because although it can be an amazing tool, it’s also a distraction,” Favreau says. “It’s so easy to [lose track of time] it’s kind of shocking.”

Have you used Pinterest in your job search? If so, please share with us how you used it to market yourself?

SecondAct contributor Michelle V. Rafter writes about business and workplace issues for a variety of national publications. She is based in Portland, Oregon.

Used right, LinkedIn can be a job seeker’s golden ticket.

Savvy job hunters can use the site to gain all kinds of advantages: information on the types of people a company hires, the name of the hiring manager for a particular job (and if they’re really lucky, an email address) and even the ultimate “in,” a personal connection at a company of interest.

But for every job seeker who expertly navigates the online networking scene, there are plenty of others who fumble their way through it, often over- or underestimating the role the site should play in their searches.

“LinkedIn is a valuable tool, but sometimes when people search for a job they can confuse activity with productivity,” says Tony Beshara, president of Dallas-based placement firm Babich and Associates, and author of “Unbeatable Résumés,” for which he surveyed more than 2,000 people about their LinkedIn use. “No matter what activity you’re doing, whether it’s writing your résumé or browsing profiles on LinkedIn, if that activity isn’t actually getting you an interview, it’s not as productive as something that would get you an interview.”

If your online networking has been less than productive — read: If it hasn’t actually lead to a connection to or interview with an employer of interest — you might need to revamp your LinkedIn strategy. These guidelines will help you get the most from the site.

When reaching out to your contacts:

·   Don’t be shy

The whole point of LinkedIn is to connect with people, so if you’re hesitant to reach out to a former co-worker you haven’t spoken to in  awhile, don’t be. She’s on the site for the same reason you are — to network with people — so she probably expects the occasional introduction request.

“Interestingly enough, everybody that’s on LinkedIn expects the same thing out of everybody else,” Beshara says. “[The thought is] ‘What I do for you today, you’ll do for me tomorrow.’ People are a lot more open to responding to you because they know that somebody else is going to do the same thing for them, or that you’re going to do the same thing for them the next time.”

·   Don’t be needy

When you do find someone in your network who has a connection or works for a company you’d like an introduction to, your approach will play a big part in the person’s response.

“Make it known early in the process that you’re not expecting your networking connections to do the hard work for you,” says Diane Crompton, author of “Seven Days to Online Networking” and “Find a Job through Social Networking.” “In other words, if you want them to introduce you to a contact at their employer, say something like, ‘I’m not expecting you to endorse me for this position or intervene on my behalf.’ This will take the emotional burden off of them should they feel too much ownership in your job-search process.”

If your networking contact is new, or someone you don’t know very well, it’s especially important to make it known that you’ll be the most active part of the equation, Crompton says. For example, “Ask if you can use your contact’s name as a door opener to get the conversation going with your desired end recipient. By doing this, you’ve taken them off the hot seat in terms of their involvement,” she says.

·   Take it off-line

InMail, LinkedIn’s messaging function, is great for making initial contact with someone. But once that’s done, take the conversation to email or a phone call, or establish a time to meet face-to-face. Besides being impersonal, communication via InMail is often ineffective and slow, since not everyone checks their LinkedIn profile consistently.

If you’re browsing your connections and find out that someone you know pretty well works at a company or has a connection of interest, you can skip the InMail message altogether.

For example, Beshara says, “Once you find somebody you know at an organization, call them up and say ‘Hey Mary, this is Tony, I understand you work with Leroy, and I’d like to get ahold of him. Can you tell me a little bit about him, or what’s going on at your organization?’”

When making introduction requests:

·   Let your contact know it’s coming

If you plan on asking a contact for an introduction and have his email address, send him a “heads up” to let him know it’s coming. Doing so will help you gauge his reception to your request, Crompton says. “[Plus], not everybody is active on LinkedIn every day, and this will ensure that your message doesn’t sit in their LinkedIn Inbox for a long period of time,” she says.

·   Make a good first impression

Something that not all job seekers realize before they send introduction requests: “When using the ‘Request an Introduction’ function on LinkedIn, you’ll need to create messages to your ‘bridge’ (middle) contact as well as to the end recipient,” Crompton says. “Keep in mind that both people receive both messages, so if you’re on a casual name basis with the introducer, you’ll still need to keep the communication more formal and professional, knowing that your end recipient will also get the message you sent along to the middle connection.”

When researching companies

·   Find the hiring manager

If you’re interested in a particular job, try finding the hiring manager for the position on LinkedIn. Job descriptions will often include the title of the person to whom the job will report. If the position you’re interested in reports to the director of marketing, for example, pull up the company page, and see if you can find the person with this title.

If you do find the hiring manager, “It’s absolutely OK to reach out to him or her directly,” Beshara says. If the person’s email address isn’t listed, you can often find the company’s email format online (for example, FirstName.LastName@companyX.com), and plug the person’s name into the format.

·   Look at whom they hire

Browsing company profiles will not only give you a better idea of whether or not you’re the type of person they usually hire, but will also clue you in about potential connections you may have missed.

“You can look at employee profiles and find out what kinds of people the company has hired in the past, what companies employees come from, if you went to school with any of them, etc.,” Beshara says.

If you find a common bond between you and someone you’d like to reach out to, “Use the transparency of LinkedIn to assess the best approach for communicating with your end recipient,” Crompton suggests. “Customizing your message by using these commonalities will build rapport and make your initial approach that much more warm.”

Kaitlin Madden is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com and its job blog, The Work Buzz. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues. Follow @Careerbuilder on Twitter.

The job and internship search can be tough at times, especially in a slower economy. The process can feel like a full-time job with so many different areas of focus, including self awareness, what kind of job you want, resumes, cover letters, networking, applications, interviews and more! There are many tools and resources available and one of the most useful resources is LinkedIn, the leading “social networking” site for professionals. LinkedIn is different from Facebook or Twitter in that it is focused on networking yourself as a professional and you can use it to connect with other professionals. It is also easy to use and a great way to begin your job search! Let’s find out more…

Who Uses LinkedIn?

• Over 60 million professionals
• Roughly 1 new sign-up per second
• Over 150 industries
• Executives from every Fortune 500 firm
• 2.1 million students
• 37,000 college and university alumni groups

Why Use LinkedIn?

• Build a professional online presence – if you fill out your profile 100% and someone tries to Google your name, usually your LinkedIn profile will be at the top of the list. This is a great way to build brand recognition and it’s reassuring to know that the first thing others see is your professional side.
• Connect in a meaningful way with alumni and other “warm” contacts – there are over 63,000 OSU alums on LinkedIn! They are a great resource in finding a job and/or connecting you with someone else.
• Research companies and career paths – LinkedIn allows you to research specific companies or find jobs using a keyword search. For example, if you are interested in working in the music industry, you can type the word “music” under keyword and find all the people on LinkedIn that have a job that involves music. You may just find that there are a variety of jobs in this field that you never even heard of before! This is a fantastic tool for those that are exploring career options!
• Explore opportunities with organizations that don’t recruit on campus – there may be some companies or organizations that you would like to work for but do not recruit at OSU. LinkedIn allows you to find out about companies from all over the world!
• Learn professional networking etiquette – LinkedIn provides a variety of opportunities to network and gives examples of how to set up a professional profile and how to network using LinkedIn.

How to Get Started?

Hopefully this information has convinced you to set up a LinkedIn profile or if you already have one, to become more active on the site. It is easy to create a profile and get connected to other professionals Check out http://learn.linkedin.com/students/step-1/ for a quick video about getting started and get LinkedIn today!

If you have any questions about using LinkedIn or other ways to use social media and networking to get a job, contact Career Services at 737-4085…we are happy to help!

Resource: http://www.linkedin.com

Posted by Jen Busick, Career Advisor & Outreach Coordinator

This recent phenomenon has become a valuable screening tool for employers, who in the past did not have this kind of access to personal information.  Statistics vary slightly, but generally they seem to agree that between 40% and 50% are now using social media information in some form, and the number is growing. You can make this work in your favor, or if you’re not careful, it can work against you.  According to a survey of 2,667 HR professionals compiled by CareerBuilder.com, “eighteen percent of employers reported they have found content on social networking sites that caused them to hire the candidate.” However, up to 53% surveyed admitted they disqualified a candidate because of content!

One way to take advantage of social media is your presentation, and an obvious place to start is Facebook. Think of it as dressing professionally for an interview, only virtually.  It’s a great way to show your best side. Consider what your page, your wall, or your pictures might be saying to potential employers if they were to visit.  Are you presenting an appealing, professional persona? Also, your page is a great place to express additional professional interests and relevant experiences that you weren’t able to address on a resume or cover letter because of space restrictions.  A positive appearance will speak volumes to someone who is interested in hiring you.  And in today’s job market, a virtual professional look is as important as a first impression, and could give you a serious advantage over the competition.

If you think there may be images or conversations on your page that a potential employer might view as undesirable, consider making some changes, such as making the information private, but also take advantage of visibility that can effectively work in your favor. If you’re unsure about some of the elements ask a parent or advisor, or call us at Career Services.  If you are serious about your career goals and getting hired, this could make the difference in whether or not you get the job!

Posted by Barbara Harrelson, Career Services Receptionist