Social Media Tips & More For My Unemployed or Underemployed Friends

I have quite a few friends who are unemployed right now and those who aren’t unemployed are most likely underemployed. It is really terrible how things are for people in my age group because it is hard to find a job, especially one that you would want to keep long term. It’s hard to believe how poor the job markets are today. They definitely didn’t teach us about these kind of hardships in high school or even college for that matter.

Lucky for me I found a dream job. But that is beside the point. I’d like to share a few tips that might increase your chances at landing a job or if you already have one, find a better one.

Facebook Privacy Settings
First and foremost, make sure your privacy settings are tweaked on Facebook. If you’re like me (or anyone who has attended College), there are bound to be plenty of pictures you are tagged in that you wouldn’t want a potential employer seeing. The image below is how I have my own privacy settings on Facebook. These settings should be good to keep your profile and its information locked down to outsiders:

My Own Facebook Privacy Settings

After your privacy settings are tweaked on Facebook, get all your other social media profiles locked down as well.

Twitter and Tweets – Build a brand for yourself
Next, if you are on Twitter you should probably look to make your tweets private (they refer to it as “Protected”). I’d also probably recommend you change your avatar to something else so a potential employer doesn’t make out the resemblance.

This next step is for everyone. Create a “public” Twitter profile using your REAL NAME. This is important because you WANT people to find this when and if they search for your name in Google. Twitter usually has an easy time appearing at the top of search results in Google so if you use your real name, people will find this. The next steps are important. The whole point of setting up this public Twitter profile is to become engaged in whatever industry you are trying to find a job in. Find other people, companies, or organizations that relate to your industry. Make it a point to retweet others links to articles, stories, etc related to your field. Even find your own links and post them. Make it a point to tweet about how you’re trying to find work in this industry. This public Twitter profile might help you find work through someone you follow or someone who follows you, but the real reason why this is important is because it will make you appear to be engaged in your field. Heck, it might actually make you engaged in your field.

LinkedIn
I would also recommend you get yourself listed on LinkedIn. Find all the companies you worked for in the past and connect with them. Find all your friends and colleagues. Search for industry groups and associations. After you’ve found them all, make it a point to ask for recommendations from those who you personally know and who you’ve done business with. The more you get, the better.

Resume & Cover Letter
Another important thing to take into consideration is your resume. Send your resume to friends and family and have them look it over. If you’re lucky, a friend or family member will give you good recommendations that help to will better your resume. After you’ve sent your resume to be peer reviewed, make it a point to send a different resume for each and every position you are applying for. Don’t assume your one resume will work for every job opening and position. If you have a reference that would suit a particular job opening better than another, change it up. Everyone thinks the only thing that needs to be custom on a resume is the cover letter. Do yourself a favor and make a custom resume for every job you’re applying for.

Finding Jobs in Ohio
If you live in the great state of Ohio, check out OhioMeansJobs.Gov. This site aggregates data from many different sources (Monster, Career Builder, etc. just to name a few). Do yourself a favor and check out their tips page too. Using the search feature of the site with some “custom” queries can help you narrow your search or expand it if you’re having trouble. Make sure you check that site on a daily basis and be sure to try different searches. Don’t just search for “marketing” or something generic every time.

Final Advice
One final word of advice — make sure you don’t get too comfortable if you already have a crappy job. Just because the media is still buzzing about how crappy the economy is doesn’t mean there aren’t job openings. I had a decent job before I found the dream job I have now. Keep looking and keep your hopes up.

Next week, I will have a guest blogger. Darrin Grella has over ten years of recruiting and marketing experience as a top performer in the recruiting industry both as a third party as well as an in-house senior executive recruiter. He placed me in my current job, has placed senior executives, interactive marketing, engineers and technical professionals within the B2B, consumer products and retail industries. Next weeks topic will be on preparing for the interview and the interview.