Skip Job Boards and Use Social Media Instead

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With one click, hiring managers can identify an applicant's voice, thoughts, and feelings, as well as how he or she may fit into an organization's culture and the specific role that needs to be filled. To be a successful blogger, passion, hard work, integrity, and the ability to take criticism are required.

Twitter: The service has proven its worth as a communication device, support center for businesses, and as a news source, but what about for jobs? For starters, you can post your résumé on Twitter using twtjobs.com, or you can search for jobs by going to twitterjobsearch.com. Billy Goodnick, a garden writer on Twitter, was followed by the Web editor of Fine Gardening magazine after he developed a loyal Twitter following. Goodnick was then invited to guest blog for the magazine and eventually received a job as a contributor. The moral of the story is that you never know who is going to discover you on social networks and what opportunities might arise just from participating.

Twitter, unlike most social networks, has a lot of restrictions, not just the 140-character limit for messages, but for your bio area, where you can have only your name, your location, a very brief bio, and a single link. This is why I encourage you to go to twitbacks.com and create a custom background, which can include more of your information to paint a stronger portrait of your personal brand. In addition, you should focus your tweets on your expertise instead of randomly tweeting about anything that comes to your mind, so you can become the go-to source for information on that topic. You should also follow people in your field, especially those employed at companies you want to work for.

Facebook: With 250 million users, Facebook is the largest social network and is home to both corporate recruiters and headhunters, who tend to use it more for background checks than for recruiting. In fact, Careerbuilder.com reports that one in five recruiters uses Facebook for candidate background checks. So you better hide those party pictures and set privacy settings before your résumé is tossed in the "don't hire" pile.

Although you may feel that you can protect certain aspects of your profile with privacy settings, be forewarned that Facebook has your data and sells it to other companies. Be sure to get your custom URL by going to facebook.com/usernames and selecting facebook.com/yourfullname if it's still available. Also, you can add your LinkedIn profile using an application and input your previous work experience and interests.

On Facebook, status updates can be a job-seeking tool. Henry Mackintosh found this out after posting a Facebook status message saying he was unemployed. he received three e-mails in two hours and eventually became a marketing manager at WorkDigital Ltd. "The genius behind the status update is that it is a way of networking old contacts without harassing them," says Mackintosh.

In your job search, social media is the great equalizer. It allows you to connect directly with hiring managers who work for companies you have genuine interest in instead of applying mindlessly through job boards. By being both proactive and reactive on social networks, you're able to be recruited based on your passion, while having access to people who can actually hire you—or at least forward your résumé. As the résumé becomes less and less relevant, you can count on the Web to exploit what you're capable of and help bring your dreams to life!

Dan Schawbel, personal branding expert for Gen-Y, is the best-selling author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 2009), as well as the publisher of both the award-winning Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine. Schawbel is a social media specialist for EMC Corp., has a syndicated column for Metro US, and writes for Mashable, Lifehack, and Mediapost. He has been featured in over 100 media outlets such as BusinessWeek, The New York Times, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal. .

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