Article by Erica Perez of the Journal Sentinel
Excerpts from
Need a job? Get social - in a networking kind of way
"What I try to explain to students is that social media accelerates professional networking," said Grace Kutney, career technology specialist at Lawrence University. "And since 85% of jobs are found through networking, and right now in the current market it's maybe 95%, if they can accelerate their professional networking through social media, they're better off."
College career centers advise "...many employers use the Web to research job candidates." Now, they are encouraging students to strategically craft their Web presence. 'Social networking.... is something we need to figure out how to use it for (career) networking,' said UWM student Olivia Johnson, 21. Twitter - advisers say, ...[should be] "about showing off your interests and expertise."
Advice to students: Research companies you want to work for and the people who work for them and follow them on Twitter. Try to catch these people's attention with your posts. Examples of what to "tweet": What are you researching? What did your class talk about? "It can be anything like that that says 'I have a skill,' " said Spreenkler's Steve Glynn.
Grace Kutney, who has worked in career development for 11 years, also knows the networking potential of social media firsthand. She has become more active online - in her blog "Sweet Careers," Twitter and more - in the past six months. "In that time, I've developed more and stronger professional contacts than I had in 10 years previous," she said. "I was able to connect with people who are like-minded in the industry and have learned a lot more about my field."
The rest of this interesting article and good advice is here
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