Despite being a technology early adopter and writer, I’ve only kept a slow and steady clip with my social media presence. My social media presence is focused on LinkedIn and Twitter with a little Facebook and Google+ thrown in for good measure. Somehow along the way, Klout seemed to think I should have an account with them and just signed me up. Not cool. Here are the 10 reasons why Klout has no clout with me:
I’ve been debating on whether or not to move the presentations I post on this blog from SlideShare.net over to SlideRocket. Here is how my last Jobs Ministry presentation looks:
SlideRocket is a great service but doesn’t seem to get the attention that Scribd and SlideShare get online. What do you think?
I had the opportunity to give my talk about social media and job hunting again at last week’s meeting of the Messiah United Methodist Church Jobs Ministry. As a volunteer, I am happy to be there to help people, and find myself learning something new whenever I talk to folks on the subject. Getting up and talking in front of a group about LinkedIn and the use of social media as a job-hunting tool also challenges me to refine my own online brand and job hunting approach.
Here are some lessons I’ve learned from two presentations and a lot of reading and research about the subject in between and try to stress during my talks:
I’ll be giving a presentation about using Social Media (LinkedIn in particular) for job hunting at the Messiah United Methodist Church Jobs Ministry at 7:00 pm. You don’t need to be a member of the church to attend the Jobs Ministry meetings. More information about the Jobs Ministry can be found on their web page. I’ll be posting the presentation slides on my blog after the event.
David F. Carr over at the Brainyard on Informationweek.com recently published an article entitled How Social Media Changes Technical Communication and poses the question, “Does all this community activity devalue the contribution of the professional writer or editor?” It’s a good question as more companies look to get more value out of their online and social media presences to support their customer community. However, just like back in the days when the users would measure the value of documentation by the girth of its spine, how social media changes technical communication comes down to the management and positioning of an organization’s technical documentation.
Despite making a living as a contract technical writer for years, I never really given much deep thought to job hunting and resumes in particular until I started volunteering for my church’s Jobs Ministry. For so long, it was just part of the business and it got a lot harder when the economy began to tank. When it was time for me to get involved with the church and I thought all of my experience seeking work and dealing with recruiters could help somebody out. I had also been online as a job hunter since before it was cool.
One of my first personal challenges with volunteering was to really reflect on my experience job hunting online especially with my recent experiences using LinkedIn.The intersection of social media and resumes is something I am finding very interesting right now. When I first got online, you were on the leading edge if you owned your own domain where you posted your resume. Now with domain registry and web space costs at reasonable prices it is within reach of anybody wanting their own web presence. While I have a LinkedIn Profile, FaceBook profile, and tweet, I really don’t consider myself a social media maven but I realize its business value and that an online social presence for a resume has left the realm of tech industry-only early adopters and become a necessity for today’s proactive or passive job hunter across all industries.
Now Google is letting Google Apps and Google Apps for Business users join Google+, which I see as a strategic move for the fledgling social network. While I like what I see so far in Google+, there are mixed reports of its adoption and footprint in the market. Since I currently work on a federal government project, I am intrigued about the intersection of social media and Office productivity applications since I currently work in the federal sector and my office is on a secure network.
Here are the slides from the presentation I gave tonight at the Messiah United Methodist Church Jobs Ministry.
By my own admission, I am not a Facebook guy. While I do maintain an account, I use it to keep up with a limited group of distant friends and wax nostalgically about my summers working as a summer camp counselor at Broad Creek Memorial Scout Reservation. However, largely, I don’t share much and don’t spend time expanding my network of friends. Even with all of that, I am still an early adopter and hopped on Google+ the evening after I got an invitation from a co-worker. My early impressions of it have all been quite favorable. This caught nobody by surprise more than me. While I recognize the strength of social media, my life doesn’t revolve around it either personally or professionally.
I get the concept of circles and actually like it better usability-wise, than how Facebook and LinkedIn handle such management. The posting tools in Google+ are also well done when compared to Facebook. I find the posting tools in Facebook to be a bit hard to read sometimes especially late at night.
I’ve had a LinkedIn profile for a while but only got serious about it in the past few years. While I am by no means a Facebook person, though a semi frequent user of Twitter, I do take the time to properly care for and feed my LinkedIn profile. It has become a valuable component of my online presence and it seems I get more contacts via the service about potential contract projects and employment each year.
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