New Book Explains How to Use Tools like LinkedIn and Batchbook to Find a Job
- Posted October 18th, 2011
- Filed under: Blue By You, Social Media
Searching for a job in today’s market is tough. You want to use every tool available, and as far as those tools go, social media is a pretty powerful one. Batchbook customer and social media strategist Joshua Waldman sets out to show you just how to harness the power of social media to find your next job in his new book, Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies.
Joshua’s passion is helping job seekers and employers use social tools to connect and to find and fill jobs. He blogs on the topic regularly at his website, careerenlightenment.com. He discovered this passion after being laid off twice within 6 months in 2008. After the second lay off, he started to spend more time in social media, partly as a way to immerse himself into something positive after being dealt a couple of hard blows.
Before long, Joshua found that he was able to connect with people who were hiring, and he lined up a bunch of interviews. There was only one problem, he wasn’t ready to take another job. Instead, he had a light-bulb moment. If he could get interviews and job offers using social media, maybe he could teach others to use these tools as well. This is how he started his career as a social media strategist, focusing on the job market niche.
Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies is a resource heavy book, sort of a manual for job seekers who hope to capitalize on the power of tools like Twitter and LinkedIn to help them find a great job.
Joshua ranks LinkedIn as a top tool for both job seekers and hiring managers. It has a ready made network for job seekers, and allows those who are doing the hiring to find good fits, often within their existing networks. But just having a presence on LinkedIn, or Twitter and Facebook for that matter, is not enough. In the book, Joshua explains how to create a systematic approach to finding a job. To do so, he recommends using Batchbook to build out your list of contacts and to manage important follow up steps. Where LinkedIn and other social networks help you find people to connect with in your job search, Batchbook helps you to nurture valuable relationships and to conduct your search in an organized manner.
Using the right tools, like social networks and Batchbook, can give job seekers a leg up. That makes this a very important book for those who are looking for a job now or who will be in the future. With shrinking budgets, hiring departments are turning more and more to social media to post new jobs and connect with potential new hires. Joshua makes a convincing argument that if hiring managers are using social media, job seekers should be as well.
Of course, finding a job using social media is not as simple as just signing up for an account. Joshua provides key insights throughout the book, and reading it will give you the opportunity to learn from other people’s missteps as well as successes. For example, in the section on Facebook, Joshua explains the importance of choosing the correct privacy settings for your profile so you can avoid any embarrassment with your potential employer.
Since using social media for job searching is a different animal than using it for personal enjoyment, this book is a great fit for both those new to social media and those who are experienced users. The tools are there to help you find your next job, you just need to learn how to use them correctly. Check out Joshua Waldman’s Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies to get the inside scoop!
