Facebook For Your Job Search in 1, 2, 3 !

I have to admit that I was a late adopter to using Facebook. This is surprising because I am a total internet addict, but something about Facebook didn’t initially click for me. I saw coworkers visiting the Facebook site at work and sending updates from their Blackberry, but didn’t quite see the value. This is the same reaction that I see many having to Twitter.

Eventually I did sign up, began using it and have had some Facebook fun. And I have done a lot of research about how you can use Facebook for your job search and how recruiters are using the site for research. I still believe that LinkedIn is the most important social networking site for job seekers, but there is a lot of value in leveraging Facebook as well.

I have recapped below, the three most important steps to using Facebook for your job search. If you have other ideas and tips, please add them to the comments section.

1) Design a Job Search Friendly Facebook Profile

When building your personal profile, strategically add and organize content with your job search in mind. You can include your resume or networking profile in the “notes” and “information” sections. You can add separate tabs for Slideshare and YouTube to showcase your professional media. You can connect Twitter to your status updates and refer to your expertise in your tweets. (For more information, refer to the article “Building a Tweet Content Strategy For Your Job Search”) If you write a business related blog, you can share your posts with your Facebook friends via an RSS feed.

You also want to strategically exclude content from your profile, if you plan to use Facebook as a job search tool. Remove any inappropriate photos and ensure that none of the public profile content is racy or inappropriate.

After you create your job search friendly profile, go to the Privacy Settings area on Facebook and choose preferences that allow you to share the appropriate information with the public, and share the remaining information with just your Facebook friends.

Social network recruiters who leverage social media tools to search for (source) candidates to fill open positions actively use Facebook, so you want to be found. (A recent survey from Jobvite.com, stated that Facebook use among employers grew from 36 percent in 2008 to 59 percent in 2009.)

2) Develop and Stand By A Friend Strategy

Once you become Facebook friends with another user, their access to you and your content can significantly increase. Decide if you want to limit Facebook friends, just to “friends and family” or to expand it to include business contacts.

If you do decide to include business contacts, learn how to use the Facebook lists functionality. Similar to Twitter and now LinkedIn, you can organize your connections by category. Then, when sharing updates, you can decide to send them to everyone, or just portions of your contacts.

And, triple check your privacy settings. When I think about my Facebook friends, my younger brother comes to mind. He has a tendency to post updates that are less than professional and I would not want any business contacts to see them. And, my sister loves to post old pictures of me growing up which are not always very flattering. (Thanks Sis!) My guess is that you have friends and family that also use Facebook like this. So, triple check your privacy settings if you decide to include business contacts as Facebook friends.

I love this cartoon from HubSpot about social media friends:

3) Become A Fan Of Target Companies

Facebook Fan pages can be an incredible source of information about the companies you want to work for. To find them, use the Facebook search function, narrow the results to “pages” and identify the ones for your targets. If the page is rich with information and updates, become a Facebook Fan.

Here are two examples of employers actively using Facebook Fan Pages.

iProspect is a search engine marketing firm, based in Boston, MA and has just over 1,300 fans. In addition to the traditional company overview stuff, you also get links to a “library” of company research studies and white papers, and access to a photo library with shots of employees and company events

Google, has several fan pages including one devoted to working for the company called Life At Google.

The fan page news feed has content specific to working for Google. For example, here is a post from January 25, 2010, “ Google is one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For! http://bit.ly/google100best We came in 4th place, but we’re going to work really hard to get back to #1 next year!”

Once you become a Fan, your target company updates will automatically show up in your Facebook news stream. You’ll see the updates as they happen!

But Wait.. What about Their Job Postings?

Facebook does have a Jobs section within Facebook Marketplace however; there are “slim pickins” which is a job search term- LOL. Having worked for Monster.com I can tell you that Facebook was not considered a competitor in the job search space. I recommend that job seekers invest their time with online tools that will yield better results such as the Indeed.com or SimplyHired job posting aggregators.

You may also be interested in the post, “Facebook and your job search” by Jason Alba on Job-Hunt.org. He shares some additional tips about Facebook Groups and building your network.

And, I just discovered this PDF from The Ladders called “Can you Facebook your way to a new job?”.

Copyright February 2010, Marci Reynolds, All Rights Reserved