Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Using Twitter and Facebook to Find a Job

TIME Magazine had an interesting article earlier this month about how more people are using Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites to help them find jobs. Nearly 1 in 10 people are out of work and the typical job search lasts 12 weeks. But they found out software architect who used social networking to get a new job in 11 days after being laid off using social networking. This is especially interesting for people who are the sole breadwinner for their families--as this software architect is--and need to find a job very quickly.   
 
For Human Resources, it may be expanding your search base beyond Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com to find the best candidates on the Twitters and Facebooks and LinkedIns of the social networking world. Especially if you work in a company that favors having people savvy in social networking: software, IT, PR, Marketing, sales, internet, etc.
 
The New York Times Freakonomics blog has an interesting response to this:
Will the recovery favor the internet-savvy in other fields as well? (Or: maybe this guy was just a super employee who, if he hadn’t been wasting his time tweeting, would have found a job in 10 days?)
The former question will be interesting to watch as the economy slowly recovers (the latter question is interesting to think about as well) and more people look for unique ways to find jobs once hiring starts up again.

No comments:

Post a Comment