Social Media « The Career Development Center Blog

I was teaching a class of career advisors over the last few weeks on how to instruct their clients on the proper use of social media in their job hunts.

Several of their clients had lost their jobs because of inappropriate comments on Facebook.

Other clients had lost potential opportunities because of not having a photo on LinkedIn.

Shortly after the second class on Facebook Privacy, Facebook changed its privacy settings, makin

g about 2 hours of training obsolete.

That’s fine with me, in fact, the pace of change is one thing that attracts me to this business.

However, some of the students asked the director to ask me for step-by-step instructions.

Step-by-Step Instructions Don’t Work

I had to decline this request for three reasons.

First, Facebook already looked a lot different than it had in our training. If I were to send them instructions, they wouldn’t recognize anything. Likewise, in another 3 months LinkedIn’s interface may change.

The reality is that the question of “Where to click” is the least of our worries when using social media.

Second, YouTube has a plethora of free video training on all aspects of social media. In fact, when I’m selling my webinar training services to Career Centers at universities, my biggest competition is YouTube.

It isn’t until I explain that the value in what I do, as different from YouTube, is that I’m not just showing people where to click. There is an actual strategy, with clear proven steps, that builds on mere technical knowledge.

And I never stopped the career advisors from taking notes.

You Can’t Advise What You Don’t Know Yourself

In a strange way, I really want to give people a magic sheet of paper with all the answers to their social media questions.

As advisors, we must be the answer. The value that I strive to impart was the reason behind learning social media.

The reason they should learn this stuff …

That 80 percent of employers are going to look their clients up online. That their first impressions are likely to be online impressions. That flippant comments on Facebook could cost you your job.

My goal when teaching social media is to impart the importance of really understanding the benefits of using it.

Social Media is not a silver bullet by any stretch of the imagination. It is just another tool to be used by a job seeker.

Getting comfortable with these technologies takes time. So when you are just getting started, try to resist the desire to have a sheet of paper with all the answers.

In due time, you will develop an intuition for the best ways to use these tools. Trust me.

Joshua Waldman, author of Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies, is recognized as one of the nations top authorities in Social Media Career Advancement. To learn Joshua’s secret strategies for shortening the online job search and getting the right job right away, watch his exclusive video training here to learn How To Use Social Media Find a Job

NOTE: This post was written by a guest blogger and the content for the post approved by Oregon State University Career Services. We are not responsible for the content on the guest blogger’s personal website and do not endorse their site.

I receive a fair amount of requests for LinkedIn recommendations, and I usually oblige without hesitation. However, a recent e-mail from an old colleague made me realize there are plenty of “networkers” out there who just don’t get it.

“Yo, would you give me some props for that time we volunteered at SunLight.”

I thought he was kidding. But unfortunately, he wasn’t.

Here are two important facts you should know about my business relationship with this guy:

I haven’t heard from him in years.
We barely worked together.

His request of a recommendation was awful, there was zero effort applied. Apparently I’m only worth 14 words of this guy’s time.

(If you want to know how he could have taken a better approach to asking for a recommendation, you can read my advice on asking for LinkedIn recommendations.)

If only this “dear friend” of mine knew about the new LinkedIn Contact product.
Had he known, he may have received more than a laugh from me. He may have actually gotten his recommendation.

All LinkedIn users need to follow these three tips to stay current and ask for help more skillfully.

Oh, if you don’t have the new Contact app, you can sign up for the beta release.

1. Understand Not All Contacts Are Created Equal

In her book, Is Your “Net” Working, Anne Boe suggests you categorize the people in your network into one of eight possible choices:

Keystones: The core of your network.
Experts: The people you respect in your field.
Tangential Helpers: The people who help you get your job done.
Mentors: The people who provide you with guidance.
Role Models: The people who have achieved what you are aspiring to.
Hubs: The people who connect you with other helpful people.
Challengers: The people who cause you to look at your direction and challenge your assumptions.
Promoters: The people who recommend you to opportunities.

With LinkedIn Contacts, use the Tagging feature (see below) to put your connections into one of these eight categories.

Ask yourself, “Who do I need to stay in touch with? Which category can I apply?”

2. Set Contact Reminders

My friend’s failed request came out of nowhere. Yet, I’m also sensitive to the fact he probably has an above average network.

How can he possibly stay in touch with everyone, right?

(Glad to know I’m somewhere at the bottom. LinkedIn is probably a numbers game for him.)

Well, don’t wait until you need something to touch base with your network. That’s poor practice and is usually pretty obvious. Instead, use LinkedIn’s Reminder feature to remind you to consistently stay in touch.

Rule-of-Thumb: You should reach out to your most important contacts at least once every 30 days. Other contacts don’t need to hear from you more than once every few months.

Before you forget, go into your contact’s list and set these reminders for yourself.

3. Pick Up Where You Left Off

With LinkedIn Contacts, the e-mails sent to that person can be found in their profile. This is what it looks like:

This means you can pick up where you left off in your last conversation.

For example, three years ago, this friend of mine and I were talking about creating a website together. The platform never materialized but our idea seems to have become popular, kind of an ironic and fun shared experience.

Tip: By linking together past conversations with your latest notes, you help the contact see the nature of your relationship. Your connections are busy (like you) so they may need gentle reminders about why they’re linked up with you.

There are many ways to find internship opportunities and I always encourage students to implement all strategies. Before even starting to find an internship, it is a good idea to think about what you want to get out of the internship. In order to know what you want to get out of the internship, first think about what skills and experiences you need to have in order to get the job you want when you graduate. Check out multiple job descriptions, talk to people in the field and make a list of those qualifications. Then note the ones that you have and the ones you still need to develop. The ones you need to develop could be incorporated into your internship. For example, maybe you need to know a specific software program, or maybe you need to have experience presenting to others – include these in your learning outcomes for the internship.

Once you have identified the learning outcomes you will feel more prepared to find opportunities and you will appear more focused and confident to those looking to hire someone. Networking is always important, no matter the field, so tell all of your family, friends, professors, advisors, etc. that you are looking for an internship. Don’t just tell them you are looking for an internship, prepare a 30 second spiel that articulates what you want such as the industry, some companies or organizations that interest you, what you would like to get out of the internship, and anything else that you feel is important to include. You never know who someone in your network may know!

Besides networking, other strategies include paying attention to the emails you get from your professors, academic advisors, department, etc. Oftentimes they send opportunities your way but you have to actually read and follow up on the email. If your school has a job database this is another place to look for internships since employers are posting on that site because they want students from that particular school (at OSU it is Beaver JobNet). Career Fairs also often have internship opportunities, so be sure to attend! Depending on your major and field of interest, some companies have actual internship programs and those you can typically find on the company’s website or just do an online search of internship programs in “fill in the blank of your field.” Another great resource for internship opportunities are through professional associations. Every field has at least one professional association or society and many offer a student discount rate to join. Many also have internship postings on their website and you don’t always have to be a member to view them. Some companies are now recruiting through social media. LinkedIn offers job and internship postings and you can also search Twitter for internships in a specific field, for example, marketing internships. Just remember to make sure you have a clean and professional online presence!

These are just a handful of strategies to finding an internship…now just make sure you do at least one internship while in school. You’ll not only build a stronger resume, but learn about yourself and your future career.

Posted by Jen Busick Stewart, Career Advisor & Outreach Coordinator

Some of you may have never heard of LinkedIn before, so I will give you a little overview on what it is, then share a list of my top 5 reasons to get on it! For those of you who do know about LinkedIn bear with me a bit while I bring everyone else up to speed. LinkedIn is the world’s largest free professional social networking site, where you can connect with past and present coworkers, employers, companies and classmates, and make new connections through your current network.

Why YOU should get on it:

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.
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.
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?”
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.
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

Welcome to Career Corner! Career Corner provides career and workplace related topics and information.

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.

Many people have been asking us about setting up a profile on LinkedIn. We posted information about LinkedIn last November and we thought we would re-post it in order to answer that very familiar question: What is LinkedIn and how do I set up an account?

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

How much influence does social networking have on the job application process and your career? What does your social media persona convey about you? In today’s competitive job market these are valid questions to think about. Okay, so you’ve applied for a perfect position with a dream company and got that coveted interview. You supplied references with a resume, and expect the company will contact them; but be aware that another source of background information about you is now available to employers through social media. This includes the interactive places where you connect with family, friends and associates such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. There are also places where you can “strut your stuff” with video-sharing on YouTube and blog pages. However, whatever you choose to put out there is available for the public to see, including potential employers.

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

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Step-by-Step Instructions Don’t Work

You Can’t Advise What You Don’t Know Yourself

1. Understand Not All Contacts Are Created Equal

2. Set Contact Reminders

3. Pick Up Where You Left Off

Contact Info