Using Online Networks To Find A New Career

‘It’s not what you know, but who you know.’ This piece of advice might be well-worn, but it’s repeated so often for a reason. Savvy jobseekers have long been wise to the benefits of good networking when looking for a new career. As the labour market has slowed over the past few years, some have been actively trying to stay ahead of the curve by supplementing traditional forms of networking with online activity, aimed at lengthening their list of contacts and finding a new job.

One of the best known online resources of this type is LinkedIn. A social networking site intended specifically for commercial and professional relationships, LinkedIn is hugely versatile tool. As well as helping people to preserve and nurture existing relationships, it also performs a corporate matchmaking function, allowing users track down and find out about people who work for the companies they want to join. Over 55 million people have registered with LinkedIn, from recent graduates to managing directors, each with their own page detailing their education and employment history. Users can develop networks of potentially useful networks, send messages to one another and recommend current and former colleagues – think of it as a facebook for careerists.

Many people associate the social networking site Twitter with Stephen Fry and bromide insights. Yet if it’s used shrewdly, Twitter can be an effective way boosting job prospects and an important part of career management. By building up a list of industry contacts and posting well thought out tweets on personal experiences and appropriate news items, it’s possible to make a good name for yourself and to exploit the ‘small world’ phenomenon in the same way as through traditional networking.

Of course, this kind of career planning and jobseeking is not with its pitfalls and caveats. Indeed, the high profile demise of the offensive tweeter Stuart MacLennan – a prospective parliamentary candidate in the 2010 election – illustrates the career-ending potential of Twitter when used without care and attention. Rather than using LinkedIn and Twitter as substitutes for more traditional forms of networking, they should be seen as complementary.

Online networking sites may not spell the end of traditional Filofax-type networking and hard copy CVs, but they are becoming an increasingly useful means of finding a new career and showcasing your abilities.

Tags: career management, career planning, new career