Networking for Career Opportunities – New Avenues of Job Search

By krish on February 06th, 2010  

Job search today has changed from what it was a few years ago. Back then, job search was an analogue process that took days, if not weeks, to be completed. The personal computer was not born yet and the type writer was what ruled the office space. From those days of job applications being sent through snail mail, now is the age of blogs and personal websites that are used as job references. And naturally, as a reflection of this sea change in communication and information landscape, the way job postings are approached by candidates and job openings are targeted had to change too.

Career opportunities today are just a click away. Yes, there are numerous job sites where job positions get posted real time. And job portals make it easy for candidates by sending job openings right into their inboxes. But then, the process is just as easy for any of the legions of candidates aiming for the same job positions. So, what would be the differentiating factor between you and your competitor who applies for the same position as you do?

Welcome to the world of networking. Today, social networking is more than a mere buzzword – it is serious business for many, where individuals and brands get promoted silently, away from the bustle of life. Business networking and virtual networking events are driving business deals forward. And that is what is turning out to be a key differentiator in determining the success of a job search.

The internet is home for millions of social networking fans who have known what a difference these social networking sites could do to their careers. Professional networking groups are treasure troves of insights into professional issues. And the best career opportunities are known using the social networking platform. Networking with professionals is also facilitated by such social networking sites as LinkedIn, which are specialised in letting professionals network for career development. And more importantly, there are job positions being posted exclusively on social networking sites, as job sites invariably draw large number of responses, with many of them being misfits into the job positions advertised for.

As the economy recovers, if you have any qualms about networking for career opportunities, shed them and get into the act. Your next defining career move could well happen over a professional networking group.

Passion for Writing and Business; Post-graduation in Management; Some useful managerial experience and International Exposure; Belief in Risk-taking and in the spirit of the entrepreneur. That's me.

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Blog: Facebook’s New Features Add (and Subtract) Ad Opportunities

Facebook this week announced one feature—Groups—that will offer new marketing opportunities, and another feature—the application dashboard—that will take away some of the ways marketers can interact with Facebook users.

Groups (which isn’t actually new, but a revamp of an existing Facebook feature) gives users new ways to communicate with their friends by forming small, themed groups. In a note on the Facebook blog, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said:

Until now, Facebook has made it easy to share with all of your friends or with everyone, but there hasn’t been a simple way to create and maintain a space for sharing with the small communities of people in your life, like your roommates, classmates, co-workers and family.

Although the initial rollout has been bumpy, in part because the email notification system inundated users’ inboxes with messages about group invites and activities, the Groups concept provides a window into how Facebook is evolving social communication and how advertising might play a role.

How Facebook is evolving social communication: Instead of using machines and algorithms to figure out how people are grouped (something Facebook does routinely in determining what gets shown in a user’s news feed), Facebook is giving users control to set up their own groups. The subtext here is an acknowledgement that algorithms can’t—or shouldn’t—do everything.

Another shift in tone: the idea that some communications on Facebook might actually need to be private. Until now, the primary message Facebook has delivered to the marketplace is the opposite: that it wants to help the world to share more, and share publicly. (Case in point: Zuckerberg’s bio on his Facebook page states, “I’m trying to make the world a more open place.”) Offering the ability to create a small private group that can’t be searchable is the exact opposite of that.

How Groups might incorporate ads: Initially, there are no direct advertising opportunities to target entire Groups. A test group that I created with a few eMarketer coworkers included ads on the right side of the group page, but each member of the group saw different messages, and none of the ads seemed particularly relevant to the group as a whole. Of course, as with most of Facebook’s new-product rollouts, the advertising implications are never an afterthought. Facebook’s ad-targeting capabilities to reach individuals will no doubt be extended to include groups. One indicator: A Facebook video promoting Groups shows an example of how someone could create a group for members of a soccer team. In the demo, an ad for ESPNU appears on the right side of the page under the word “Sponsored.”

The application dashboard adds privacy controls: Facebook’s application dashboard allows users to see more clearly than ever before which applications they have installed and what kinds of information these apps are using. This sort of clarity is long overdue, although as is typical with Facebook’s new feature rollouts, by providing more information Facebook opens the door to more questions. When I checked my apps, there was an indicator showing when each app had last accessed my data. According to Facebook, none of my apps had any “recent” data-access activity at all. I find that hard to believe, unless Facebook’s definition of “recent” is a very short timeframe.

How the dashboard might remove some marketing possibilities: The most obvious impact of the application dashboard is that it will give people an easier way to remove unwanted applications, thus limiting the number of applications that can communicate with users via their newsfeed or other mechanisms. This uninstall feature isn’t new, but it has been somewhat difficult to find.

The dashboard also lets users tweak some settings, such as the ability to send a user an email message or to access a user’s data when they are not actively using the app. Removing some of these things will change the ways apps can market themselves to users. Overall, the changes are positive for users, and apps that don’t use information inappropriately will have a better chance of not being removed or altered.

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