Social media for the job search

When you think of using the Internet in your job search, your first thought is probably of major job boards and the thousands of résumés that candidates submit for every opening. This page is about some of the other ways you can use the Internet in your search. The topics come from the Beyond Job Boards presentation I give to jobseeker groups. You can find more tips and useful sources on my blog, the Net-Savvy Jobseeker.

RSS

Using the Internet in your job search is not a particularly technical topic. Mostly, you use the web browser and e-mail client that you are already familiar with. The one exception is RSS—Really Simple Syndication—an emerging technology that makes all of the new information sources manageable. Most blogs, and many other web sites, now offer their content as syndicated feeds. The key is to look for the signs of a feed, typically an orange icon, an orange rectangle labelled "RSS" or "XML," or a simple line of text that says something like, "syndicate this site."

Why you should use RSS

RSS allows you to automate information-gathering tasks, freeing you to focus on things that matter. I've always been a fan of letting computers do the repetitive tasks, and this is a great example. As the websites you follow update their sites, your software will discover the updates and present them to you. You don't have to visit all those sites to find out if there's anything new, and because the RSS software will show you only what is new, you don't have to scan the page to pick out the new parts. These two simple attributes greatly reduce the time it takes to follow new developments on your source sites.

Examples of RSS feeds

The original source of RSS feeds was blogs. Their journal-entry style is a natural for the RSS update mechanism, which makes it easy to read more blogs in less time. It's also helpful for discovering new entries on rarely updated blogs (for example, I don't miss updates from my friend who blogs every six months). As you find blogs that seem useful, subscribe to their RSS feeds for a more convenient source of updates.

RSS has grown beyond blogs to many of the major web sites you may already be using. Yahoo Finance, for example, provides RSS feeds of company news in their company research site (see an example). It's an easy way to find out about the latest developments in companies you're targeting. Other examples include the Business Journals, which offer feeds for their local markets and industry verticals, and BusinessWeek. which has an assortment of feeds, including one for career advice. The lesson is, for every publication that you like, there's a growing probability that some of their content is available through an RSS feed.

Finally, the job search sites are beginning to offer the option of saving a search as an RSS feed. In theory, every newly posted job that matches your search query would appear in your feed reader. I've had mixed results with some of the major sites, so I don't quite trust that feature yet. It's worked better with some of the more specialized sites that don't have the volume of jobs.

RSS Client Software

You have three choices for using RSS feeds. You can use a web-based aggregator, such as Bloglines or NewsGator Online, or one of the personalized home pages, such as My Yahoo or Google's personalized home page. You can use a web browser that supports RSS (rare now, but coming soon to all browsers). Or you can download and install a feed reader, a new program designed specifically for downloading and reading syndicated sites. I recommend the dedicated client software.

What software should you get?
A short list of popular RSS readers.

More:
Feedburner intro to RSS
Time for the next (really) big Internet idea
Future of RSS Looks Rosy

Blogs

Weblogs—blogs—are a growing source of information on any topic you can think of. They've gotten a lot of attention because of the political blogs that operate without the constraints of traditional media. In a business context, they can be a good source of information about companies, industries, technologies—the kinds of things jobseekers might want to know for networking and interviewing. You might find an industry insider or analyst writing about developments in their business, company employees writing about their company specifically, or a hobbyist making observations that could be relevant. Some blogs are even devoted to narrowly specialized job listings.

Some examples are listed on the sources page. For a different perspective, Ogilvy PR has published a list of the blogs they follow.

Podcasts

A podcast is an audio program that is distributed through a blog. It's basically an audio file that you can download and play on your computer or MP3 player (such as Apple's iPod). Podcasts aren't a major source, but you will encounter the occasional work- or career-related podcast, such as the career-related podcasts on Landed.fm. You can automate the downloading of podcasts with your RSS feed reader and iTunes.

More:
Weblogs (Wikipedia)
What is a blog?
Blogs 'essential' to a good career Boston Globe, April 16, 2006.
"Comcast in the dog house"—an example of the power of blogs.
iTunes & podcasting

Search

Internet search

Google has all the buzz these days, but you should use other search engines, too. The results aren't always the same. AOL, Ask, MSN and Yahoo are the other leading search providers. Look up companies, the people you meet, and yourself, to see what others are learning about you before your interviews.

More:
Have you Googled yourself?

Google tips

If all you know about Google is the front page, look at their Help Center. Print the cheat sheet and put it next to your computer. Try their other services, too. Look at all of the options. I particularly like Google Maps, which combines interactive maps and satellite photography in a very useful way. Just enter an address in Google's query, and it will offer a map as the first search result. I like to look at the map and the satellite photo before going to an unfamiliar building to get an idea of what to expect (and where to park).

Blog search

A funny thing about searching the Internet is that blogs are excluded from many search results. Google offers a blog search, but the leader is Technorati. If the idea of blogs as an information source is appealing, but you don't know where to start, start here with a query on people, companies, industries or other relevant topics. Set up RSS feeds for your feed reader, so that new matches to your query can appear automatically in your feed reader.

Wikis

A Wiki is a web site that anyone can edit. Some people are using them to collaborate with their work groups; you may encounter one if you work in a technology-oriented company. A particularly useful Wiki is Wikipedia, a free, community-created, online encyclopedia. Wikipedia is particularly strong on technology topics, but it covers a lot more. I have used Wikipedia links to the technical terms on this page. It's a good place to start if you encounter an unfamiliar technology term.