Are You Engaged in Social Media Marketing and Online Self Promotion?

If you are currently unemployed or maybe just want to position yourself for a better opportunity while currently employed you should realize that  “A large majority of companies are moving away from job boards and toward social media as their primary recruiting tool. It is estimated that 92% of companies who are actively hiring this year, will “currently use or plan to” use social networks for recruiting new employees.”

The social networking site most used by companies for recruiting is LinkedIn (78%), followed by Facebook (55%). The site that saw the most growth was Twitter, which was used by 45% of companies for recruiting in 2010. Most hiring firms will review a candidate’s social media presence as part of the vetting process, with 38% indicating that they always search for applicants’ social networking profiles and 32% doing so only sometimes. Indicating that the social media’s involvement in job recruiting is more than just hype, 58% of companies in 2010 had successfully hired employees via a social networking site.

Job seekers should take the time to create or update their linkedin, facebook and twitter accounts. Upload a current photo, make sure your contact info is displayed and take the time to add your career experience in order to allow recruiters and hiring managers to easily find your “online” resume with keyword searches. You can also upload a .doc or .pdf resume to your linkedin profile using either the free google docs or slideshare presentation applications in your linkedin control panel while editing your information. Make sure to link your twitter account to your linkedin profile so you can crosspost your updates as tweets and tweets to your linkedin status updates.

Once your online presence is established and updated it is a great time to upload your outlook contacts to the linkedin invitation tool or allow linkedin and twitter to scan your gmail, hotmail, yahoomail, or other mail service to see who you know who is already networking socially and professionally. Now you are ready to start using social media to network and market yourself to a new career.