Most of us spend some time on the Internet, I know I am certainly guilty of over indulging in leisurely surf for at least two hours of an evening. Popular sites I visit are the usual: news sites such as BBC news, I.T Blogs such as The Register and increasingly more Social Networking sites such as Facebook.com and Twitter.com. Since I have been following the sites I visit within my social media setup, they have provided the most popular picks aggregated into one place.
So you might ask now, what has this got to do with finding a career?
Well it has everything to do with a career development; Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com and Twitter.com amongst others allow you to virtual network with others in both a professional capacity and a personal one. Traditionally LinkedIn.com has been the one for jobs, careers, training and professional networking and Facebook.com and Twitter.com were more personal, where people connected with friends and colleagues. Boundaries among the social networking platforms have become murky and it is not uncommon to see positions being advertised through mediums like Facebook.
Consider with such a larger number of visitors which come back time and time again that this is the perfect medium for an employer or employment agency to advertise an open position within a business.
Just a couple facts for you about Facebook.com before we continue, there are some 500 million users around the world, of these 500 million users 50 per cent log in religiously, Facebook.com is the second most visited internet property on the Internet and is only second to Google.com.
Getting on Facebook is so easy too, you just head to Facebook.com and register – it’s on the homepage, all you really need is an email address and some personal information. Registration is not bound only to a PC or laptop, one can register from a smartphone or public computer in say a library – the whole system is very flexible.
Traditional career avenues such as printed media: local and national news also advertise vacancies on social media sites – they have diversified and allow you to view upcoming vacancies – no need to hang about another week for the paper to be printed and delivered, oh and it is free!
I would start my job hunt finding any local or national agencies and following them – this means what they write / post to their public wall will end on your wall and the more popular stuff will be more visible.
Next follow businesses you might like to work for or ones that are within your niche, for example if you are looking for hospital jobs – follow local healthcare centers, hospitals and locum agencies. They might publish open and upcoming positions to their wall, meaning you will get them in real time!
If your profile is public then you might find yourself being approached by recruiters, this path is not that common on Facebook and is quite difficult – LinkedIn.com do this much better, that being said it is not unheard of on Facebook.
Social media is evolving in to a really useful set of multi-purpose tools and moving vertically into many different directions allowing businesses and users to utilize their technology thus making lots of tasks like job hunting simpler, good luck with the job hunt!
Isaac Bullen writes for Team 24 who are a Doctor Jobs specialist – providing Nurse and Doctor Recruitment for a wide range of temporary placements.
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Your idea is great, I never though before.
But I think we still need to be careful as there are lots of bad guy out there that can cheat our effort right?
Excellent article, I loved the information.
Congratulations!
Thanks for the feedback all, I am glad this was useful.