Are social media sites the new way to get a job?

What's the best way to use the Internet when you're looking for a new job?

The answer these days is different than it was just a few years ago, observes Steve at bripblap, who's been in the job market recently. Sites like Monster and CareerBuilder list lots of jobs, but he's having better success with LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

He said in a post called "Internet job boards -- wasted effort?": "The future of work will be connectivity -- networking, in person and online -- and not the traditional advertise-submit-review pattern. It's another one of those culture shifts that's happened slowly enough that we won't notice  it -- but it will happen."

• Bing: Find a new job
  

This trend was also addressed in a post by "CGC Coaches" at @Work: "Most likely, many job seekers, older workers included, will become familiar and learn to use not only social networking sites, but also video-sharing sites such as YouTube." (Of course, nothing takes the place of a face-to-face meeting.)

The challenge is to rise above the crowd. When Steve was in charge of filling a job, an account he set up with a major job site produced a cascade of resumes. "Wading through the misplaced and poorly written resumes every morning became a tedious (and fruitless) project," he wrote.

With social media, he said, you can be recommended to the person in charge of hiring by someone that manager presumably trusts.

"Moneymonk" also suggested that job sites with a narrower focus work better than the huge ones. He said he had success with Dice.com because he's in the technology field.

Other bripblap readers mentioned having success with Craigslist.

Dan Schawbel posted at Mashable about "the top 10 social sites for finding a job." Among the top five were LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. He also offered advice on how to use each site in a job search. For instance, he said, "Although Twitter is probably one of the best networking tools on the planet, it needs to be supplemented with a blog or LinkedIn profile."

What's been your experience with job sites? Do the big ones still produce results, or are you relying more on social media?

Published March 26, 2009