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What Role Does Social Media Play in Your Job Search?

By: Paul Anderson

Can social media help you find a job faster? Can tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Google profiles help your personal brand? Will tools like LinkedIn replace our resumes in the future?

By: Taunee Besson, CMF, CareerCast.com Senior Columnist

Question: I hate networking! I hate going to crowded meetings where I don’t know anyone, telling people I want a job and seeing them cringe, burdening my friends with my unemployment woes and cold calling. These are all activities I find totally repugnant. Yet, I know I have to do it, even though it’s getting me nowhere. Obviously, I need help.

Answer: The first thing you need is an attitude adjustment. When you hate what you’re doing, it’s hard to hide your distaste. And people can sense your discomfort which makes them want to flee.

A man sitting at his computer doing research.

By: Laura DeCarlo

LinkedIn and the other social networks are increasingly popular and also increasingly useful in your job search.

Social networking sites like LinkedIn.com and Xing.com have two terrific applications for the interview:

1. Identifying individuals at target companies or in target industries for informational interviews.

2. Learning more about your interviewer before the interview.

Let’s look at a scenario:

By: Meg Guiseppi

I was speaking with an executive client recently about the new world of job searching and how essential it is to have a branded, searchable LinkedIn profile to build a strategy and leverage all that the social networking site has to offer, just to keep pace with her peers who had already done so. She understood the validity of my advice and was on board.

By: Eli Amdur

As networking has become more and more of a factor in your career – it is now the way a little over than half the jobs in America are secured – it’s time to devote more time not only to doing it, but to thinking about it.

A woman hesitantly handing over her references.

By: Joyce Lain Kennedy

DEAR JOYCE: I became the odd man out when the staff was slashed at the company where I was a department manager. I’m not sure, but I think my immediate boss caused my separation, which makes me a bit queasy about listing her as a reference in my job hunt. Can I leave her out when I prepare my reference list? – J.J.P.

No, says John Lucht, one of America’s greatest executive talent authorities: “To do so would set off horns and sirens in the mind of every reference-checker.”