Tuesday’s Tip: Are You Riding the Social Media Wave?

The average teen sends over 2000 text messages per month. The average teen speaks a shorthand language that adults have never heard of and the average teen is well ahead of their parents on the the use of social media to interact with society.

If you have not given social media a valid try, then you are job cruising at a turtle's pace. Social media has opened up many instantaneous avenues to explore new job opportunities. But, since there are so many social media sites, where do I begin? The answer is not with Facebook; you can get lost in there and never come out! Instead, use LinkedIn and Twitter. Just start with these two (for six months) and then expand from there.

The key to using social media to help your job search is to re-frame your mindset from conducting a "Job Search" to conducting a "People Search". Once you properly network and utilize the features of these social media tools, you will have better "leads" for hidden opportunities and have a much better chance of obtaining a job than clicking the "Black Hole" button that job boards label "Apply".

One final tip: Since you want to try and have the same name across all social media sites, check to see if your name is available on the most popular ones. If not, you might want to tweak your name so that you have a start to building your "brand". To see if your name (or brand) is taken, check out http://namechk.com