I was reminded the other day of the old saying: "It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools".
I recently read this article on MSNBC declaring that Social Networking sites like Twitter and LinkedIn are ineffective as job search tools. The article cites a 2009 poll of "large US employers" that says that less than 1% of new hires can be attributed to these various social networking sites. In this particular poll, I believe they were asking the wrong questions. Simply having a presence on these sites, no matter how unique or professional, does not mean you are "using" them in your job search. The poll seemed to be looking to attribute success to these tools only when people were "discovered" on them. In that case, the 1% sounds about right, but citing that and declaring the tool ineffective represents a painful misunderstanding of the real value of these tools.This doesn't suprise me because I believe that these tools are still so new that most people still misunderstand the true value and utility of them and that most people use these tools incorrectly in a job search.
Over the next few posts I'm going to tackle how to use Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook as essential elements of a modern job search. Your first hint: These tools all remind me of the famous quote from the Bible, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun".
