A Social Media Strategy For Job Seekers - Part One


I don't have to tell anyone what a tough job market we have out there. It seems that everyone I know is either out of work or is worried about losing their job. The trouble is that once a person is out on the streets, the competition for every single position is brutal.

How do you stand out in the crowd? How can you show a potential employer that you, among the hundreds of other applicants, are the one who should get the nod?

Several years ago, I taught a job search workshop for executives and mid-level managers in Atlanta. This was a really talented, credentialed group of very scared people.

This was around the time of the dot.com bubble burst around 2001 to 2002. Many of the people I taught had been six figure income earners with mortgages that matched their former incomes. They had remarkable skills and experience, but the job market was very tight (not nearly what it is now, but it was still very tight).

Step One: What Problems Are You Very Good At Solving?


One of the first things I tried to get them to do was define themselves as solutions to certain problems.

Anyone who has ever gotten a job has done so because someone saw this person as a solution to a problem or a group of related problems. Jobs are not filled to pad the employee rolls, they are filled to solve problems (I know I am being repititious here, but I want to get this point across).

One of the exercises I had my classes do was to write out a list of sentences that began with "I am very good at solving __________ ."

The first page or two of these sentences tended to be specific to their past jobs or companies. Stuff like, "Getting the XYZ report completed and distributed to regional vice presidents on time."

But after a bit, the sentences tended to open up a bit and became solutions to more common problems that other employers might be experiencing such as, "I am very good at finding the latest demographic data on b2b buying patterns." Or something like that.

The point is to learn to think of yourself as a solution. Think of the kinds of problems you are very good at solving and you are on your way.

Step Two: Start a Blog About That Problem


Now that you are thinking of yourself as a solution to a specific problem, start a blog about that problem (or set of related problems). In past posts I have written about ways to blog without having to write a lot of original content. Some of the very best bloggers are more like "news aggragators" than they are original content providers. Read other blogs, search the internet, post links to great content you find all over the web.

The goal here is not necessarily to impress an employer that you are a great writer (if you can write all the better), but to make your site a resource for helpful, useful information on solving these problems.

As you can see, this approach is designed to make yourself stand out among the crowd of job seekers who are competing for the few positions still available.

Note: I hope you also notice that these same tactics can work for freelancers or professionals who want to become known as authorities in their fields.

In Part Two of this series, we will talk about how to use your blog as a spring board to get noticed by prospective employers.

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COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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