Savvy jobseekers already know about the benefits of using social media outlets, such as blogs, to connect with other people in their field. For example, students completing online studies or classroom-based degree programs often start job search blogs to help them find their first jobs after graduation. After accepting a position, newly employed graduates sometimes continue these blogs in order to maintain contact with other professionals in their field. However, even proficient social media networkers sometimes make a colossal mistake when it comes to former employers. Though many workers are tempted to remove connections with former employers on blogs or other social media websites, burning these bridges is never a good idea.

Why Not Burn the Bridge?

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Imagine you’ve been on the job market for about six months. You are paying your mortgage on your credit cards at this point. Your unemployment benefits are about to run out and your job prospects remain dismal, no matter what you seem to do. Finally, you land a killer opportunity, pass the phone screen and show up to an interview with a hiring manager. Just as you think you’re about to close the deal, she spins her computer screen around and asks you to login to your Facebook account. What do you do? This is common enough that it now has a name: Shoulder Surfing. According to Lori Andrews, a law professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law specializing in Internet privacy, this practice is “coercion if you need a job”. Not to mention the violation in Facebook’s privacy policy, albeit unenforceable. Facebook’s official statement is that shoulder surfing “undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends” and “potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.” The ruling, made by the FTC in May, 2011, was that companies can use social media information as part of a background check, but this information must be available from public databases. In other words, strictly speaking, it could be illegal for companies to use private social media information against you without your consent. (I say could be because I am not a lawyer, I just pay attention.) However, there are some cases ... ... Read more

According to a study done by Jobvite, 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find new talent. But unless you understand the recruiting industry as it is set up today, that statistic doesn’t mean much. Recruiting has two functions; sourcing and screening. In some organizations these two activities are done by the same people. In larger companies, these are separated out. The sourcing recruiter, or researcher, performs advanced searches on Google, LinkedIn and other resume depositories, in order to build a list. Next, the screening recruiter takes ... Read more

There is little doubt that, today, LinkedIn is the highest leverage tool for professional networking. But with any social media tool, it’s status can change month after month. With the rise of BranchOut, a professional networking app that sits on top of your Facebook profile, I was curious when Facebook will rise and supersede LinkedIn. The results were a bit shocking. ... Read more

Why do you need to know about social recruiting? Literally hundreds of millions of people log onto Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn alone daily. One of the reasons is that businesses have taken notice. What have they noticed? They notice where people are and what they are doing. Facebook and Google have become today’s Big Brother and business want to harness the attention we invest in social media. Facebook and Google are business sites and businesses need the best talent. So social recruiting is here to stay because companies want to increase job visibility, hiring quality, build referrals, increase revenue and reduce costs. One of the fallacies of the social media sites is that they are for social exchange only. From the onsite of people’s participation in “social media” it’s almost always been a business proposition... ... Read more

Networking is always difficult, especially keeping track of your connections. And getting your foot in the door with new connections can seem daunting when faced with the established personalities on the Internet. So how do you make new professional connections and keep track of them all? Today, there are more tools at your fingertips to keep track of your connections, and make new ones, than ever before. Tools like BranchOut, Highlight, Meeteor and Cardmunch have become digital solutions to organizing your professional network.         ... Read more

Facetiously speaking, of course! Ginny Schlosser, a Senior Finance Leader and Human Capital Strategist, contributed this job search tip to last night’s FENG newsletter, and with her permission, I’m re-posting her comment and her reasons … <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< I couldn’t agree with you more about establishing a LinkedIn profile.  I can’t believe it when a FENG member calls or emails me about something, then when I try to look them up in LinkedIn, either they’re not there or they’re there with no picture, no experience, and fewer than 10 connections.  REALLY????? So, with tongue-in-cheek, I offer up these Five Good Reasons Not to be on Linked In... ... Read more

We all know the stories about people who’ve done less than brilliant things like posting revealing party videos on YouTube or way too much personal information on Facebook and had it come back to haunt them when they needed to do a job search or even after they’ve gotten a new job. The upside of that is that if you refrain from such dumb stunts, you shouldn’t have to be embarrassed or suffer damage to your career from those sources. However, I’ve just read an article called “What does social media gone bad look like?” The story the writer, Dean Da Costa, tells is enough to send innocent people running for cover! ... Read more

Guest post by  Kat Krull:

 Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest…if you’re not a savvy social networker, it can be overwhelming to continually hear that you should hop on the social networking bandwagon in order to land your next job. Which tools are really worth your time, and which ones might not be so beneficial to your career? ... Read more

Daily I see new blogs, webinars and seminars dedicated to tapping social media for recruiting and talent identification. So in the world of recruiting so-called social media seems to be spreading like wildfire. Companies like Facebook and Google already know more about “candidates” or people than you probably think they may know. Millions of people voluntarily adding new pictures, content, information, bios and personal information into these sites helps recruiters get the kind of DNA matches their companies now require in hiring talent. According to a survey done by TweetMyJobs.com, they did a survey to find what job seekers and employers think about using social media during their job search. After surveying over 2,000 job seekers and 400 company representatives, they found: ... Read more