Sound advice "Cynical Girl" style

Laurie Ruettimann is somewhat of a celebrity in the HR world and runs the Cynical Girl blog.  She recently attended the SHRM conference in Las Vegas and had the opportunity to rub elbows with representatives from Facebook-based apps like BranchOut and BeKnown.  Her advice to you is:

...it’s awesome to go on the internet and look for a job — and I applaud job boards for expanding into the world of social networking — but if a company can hire you without spending a dime with BranchOut or Monster or LinkedIn, it will...Go ahead and get a profile on BeKnown, LinkedIn, and Branchout — and then get off the flippin’ computer and get yourself to industry association meetings, Rotary Club meetings, and alumni mixers. Volunteer your time. That’s the way to get hired in America — and throughout the global economy.  Read more...

I would say that is some pretty good advice. Thanks Laurie!

Social Media Battlefield in Career Space

There's an interesting environment developing in the online career space.  Startups are flocking to the Facebook, presumably in an attempt to be a LinkedIn-type presence within Facebook.  But, since a number of these apps can pull your information from LinkedIn (with your permission of course), LinkedIn has pulled their plug.

Read more about LinkedIn's move in TechCrunch's article LinkedIn Cuts Off API Access To BranchOut, Monster’s BeKnown And Others For TOS Violations.

BeKnown Versus BranchOut: Competitors for Facebook Networking / Job Search Space

Careerealism has a good article out today about the BeKnown and BranchOut.  Their advice to would-be users is:

The BeKnown and BranchOut Facebook apps have very similar abilities, but the designs are quite different. I think your best bet is to try both and see which one feels most user-friendly to you. Why? Because it doesn’t make sense to use both. As a career coach, I would rather see you pick one and use it consistently then spread yourself too thin by using both. These types of networking tools are only good if you actually use them – so the decision as to which one you find easier to use must be a priority in when choosing which one to invest your time in using.

Apparently they have looked at both and will be offering a webinar on Thursday, June 30th comparing the two.  Go to the article [Breaking News] Facebook Career Wars Are ON! to learn more and register for the webinar (or sign up to view later). 

Social media and the changing job search landscape...

Someone once said that the only constant is change, and the social media environment seems to be changing almost daily along with usage stats. 

On June 16th, Career Conduit addressed job searching via Facebook, particularly BranchOut, in the post Branching out from LinkedIn.   As if on cue, according to a June 19th Inside Facebook release, BranchOut grew its monthly active user count from 32,897 to 817,367 in a week.  Apparently there is a desire to network / job search on the Facebook platform.

Today we entertain additional considerations.  As Facebook is enlarging its plaform to encourage ecommerce, how will this affect the job search?  Will more companies tend to recruit where they do business?  Furthermore, a trend is appearing in mobile.  An increasing number of web users are now accessing the web through their mobile devices.  Techcrunch cites a recent report by mobile app analytics firm Flurry:

...daily time spent in mobile apps has now surpassed web consumption. The average user now spends 9% more time using mobile apps than the Internet. In June users spent an average of 81 minutes daily on mobile apps, compared to 74 minutes on the web.

Weigh in here on how these changes affect the way that job seekers might conduct their job hunt in the future.  Do you see Facebook becoming as much or more useful than LinkedIn in this regard?

 

Branching out from LinkedIn...

There are two assumptions that we should address in regard to using social media in the job search:

1. Not all job seekers feel as if they have an adequate professional network or work experience for LinkedIn.
2. Utilizing a Facebook job app in the job search is not necessarily detrimental.

"BranchOut" on Facebook

BranchOut is a career application that works with Facebook.  It allows the user to utilize Facebook friends for networking purposes.  The application claims to have over 3,000,000 full time and 15,000 internship posts.  It works by displaying user's inside connections at great companies so you can gain an advantage when you search for a job or sales lead

In short, Branchout helps the user's Facebook account act more like LinkedIn.