Career Management Alliance Blog

Is using a social networking site during your job search really networking?

Not according to this post from The Pongo Blog.

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others are great tools to help you keep in touch with your friends and get introduced to new contacts, but they don’t substitute for face-to-face and over-the-phone networking.

Sorry, introverts!

I agree with the post that it’s easy to believe that we as job seekers are networking when we are merely engaging in brief interactions with strangers. It may be fun, it may be amusing, and we may be meeting all kinds of interesting people, but these people are not the ones who are going to think of us and contact us when they hear about a job.

Cultivating and maintaining a network of people who are going to rely on one another for important things, like referring job leads, still requires personal contact. We build trust with people after we’ve seen their faces and/or heard their voices.

If you found out about a great job opening in a different field from yours, wouldn’t you think of the people you know personally before moving on to the people you’ve met online?

Social networking sites are great places to find out about restaurants, what your friends are up to, what’s happening at a certain company, and who might be hiring. They can be excellent tools to help you secure an introduction to someone you’d like to meet.

But the way to effectively work your network as a job seeker remains decidedly low-tech.

Am I just a GenX fuddy-duddy on this issue, or what? Please let me know your thoughts.

Posted by Heather Mundell

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All things Considered, NPR’s afternoon news show, featured this story today, April 7, 2008:

“Police in East Lansing, Mich., used tear gas to disperse thousands of out-of-hand partygoers near the Michigan State University campus at an event promoted as Cedar Fest on Facebook. Police are trying to determine whether the Facebook party organizers can be held accountable.”

How does this news jive with the advice of business bloggers like Bob Gourley, who recently suggested that Executives should use LinkedIn and Facebook?

What will this mean for the cohort of professionals who are streaming over to the interactive Facebook from more static networking forums, like LinkedIn.com?

Are the Facebook “natives” happy about the migration of more professional “immigrants” to the site that has been a place to plan parties, “poke” friends, and check-out fun connections?

Should Facebook friends feel compelled to clean-up their profiles so recruiters and other professionals can use this tool as yet another way to vet candidates? Should professionals be like rain, and go away….?

Will law enforcement authorities be able to hold Facebook members liable for the collateral damage and consequences of postings initiated through the social networking site? Will Facebook’s digital fingerprint and YouTube’s video record of the event put the kibosh on the partying? Will Facebook be able to “grow-up” without going to jail?

Posted by Karen P. Katz; cross-posted on Career Acceleration Notes 

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My two favorite indoor “sports” are careers and politics; a recent book written by Chris Matthews makes some interesting observations about the intersection of these endeavors.

Life’s A Campaign: What Politics Has Taught Me About Friendship, Rivalry, Reputation, and Success is the latest book written by this journalist and TV pundit; I renewed it from the Library so I could share a few thoughts that might spark some conversation from readers…
Matthews, (who confesses to his terrible listening skills) , suggests that:

“The whole trick of life is therefore to (a) find people who like you on first meeting, (b) put effort into winning over those people you can, and (c) recognize those whom, to use Donald Trump’s phrase, you need to ‘work around.’ This is what politicians call campaigning. It’s something you’ll find you have to do in life even if you never run in a single election.”

So, what about it - do successful candidates employ similar strategies when seeking career change or transition? Are we correct to refer to the job search process as a campaign?

• Clearly, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are candidates for the same job? Have you ever competed with a “friendly foe” for the same job? What happened to the relationship after the position was filled? While it is not likely that the outcome of this a contest will result in a “win-win,” must the outcome produce both a winner and a loser?
• Is there something about the terminology, “job search campaign,” that symbolizes the process as “sport” at the expense of work/life planning?
• How are the voters and/or the press doing in fulfilling the role of “hiring managers?” Have we referred the right candidates on for the final interview?
• What role will the Super Delegates play? Are they the Senior Management team or CEO?

What can career changers and job seekers learn from the experience of these political candidates? What can advice can experienced career managers offer to the politicians?

Karen P. Katz

cross-posted on Career Acceleration Notes

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There was a tv commercial a few years back that poked fun at the job applicant who listed “Destroying Aliens” as a skill on his resume. We laughed and shuddered at the poor, unprepared youth who wasted his life playing video games.

Now life imitates art and, according to ZDNet and Wikinomics, World of Warcraft, the MMOG (Massive Multi-Player Online Game) is the new golf course. Tech executives and others meet informally, network, and hone what might be a valuable skill that employers are looking for.

Who will be the first to list this on his resume?

posted by Liz Sumner 

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