Three Career Transition Rules for Those Wanting to Navigate the Social Media Highway

The famous Canadian satirist Stephen Leacock once talked about a man who jumped on his horse and attempted to ride off in all directions at once. Today’s social media frenzy is creating a frantic ‘wild west’ scenario, which can be daunting to someone in career transition. So, to prevent Leackock’s Horseman’s Syndrome, here are three fundamental rules to help navigate the social media highway when job hunting.
1. Pay attention to ‘traditional old school networking’. Networking is still the number one source of jobs and means personally reaching out to those people in your immediate circle who know you and your body of work well. Employee referral programs are growing leaps and bounds. Social networking is helping to advance this trend by creating new communication tools that enable employees to better sell and represent their company’s employment opportunities to friends and acquaintances.
2. Start with ‘the end in mind’. Online images must be managed appropriately. Old school thinking stated ‘the first piece of work someone does for their next employer is preparing a resume’; today that may well be the impression created on Facebook and/or LinkedIn. That impression should be consistent with the values potential employers espouse. Today it should be taken as a given that before someone is made a job offer they will be checked out online.
3. Keep it simple. Save valuable research time and effort by leveraging the big ‘3’ web-based transition tools. Identify and regularly use:
• Webspiders that create a multiple job listing service and locate jobs that meet your specific ‘ideal job’ criteria;
• Dynamic data systems that provide information about organizations, their people and current events; and
• Online communities of professional interest – join one or consider starting one.

Safe driving!