Job Hunter's Guide to Social Media

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Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook have revolutionized the job search process. Hiring managers and recruiters are using these sites to source candidates and perform informal background screening. So, it behooves a prospective candidate to maximize visibility on these sites - in the right way.

"If information security job seekers are looking to increase their success at finding a job, they need to change the way they network and embrace the social websites and online community groups," says Joyce Brocaglia, president and CEO of Alta Associates, Inc., a leading search firm in IT risk management and information security and privacy.

"We've been using social media sites for our information security hiring requirements for well over a year now," says Michele Porfilio, strategic sourcing director for Crowe Horwath LLP, a public accounting and consulting firm. "It has quickly grown to be one of our top resources for recruiting, and has dramatically increased our reach for qualified candidates."

Here is a social networking checklist, describing each of the major sites and how to maximize them in your job search.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a popular networking site with hiring authorities and is very effective to find information security work by building professional relationships and joining affinity groups and associations.

LinkedIn is a more professional site that people use to showcase their skills and grow their professional network, as opposed to their personal network. It requires a bit more etiquette to use properly. "You cannot add people randomly; one needs to have a good reason for sending out an invitation for others to accept," says Barbara Massa, VP global talent acquisition, McAfee. "Practitioners will probably end up being blocked if they start adding people without considering first whether or not they fit into their circle of network."

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LinkedIn also comes in quite handy for screening potential employees and what others have to say about them, says Brocaglia, who spends considerable time looking at a candidate's LinkedIn profile to ensure that information on a resume is not in any way conflicting with the candidate's online profile. She advises candidates to be wise, thoughtful and sensitive while posting information on these sites, as information posted is permanent and these profiles strongly reflect an individual's personality.

Ways to maximize LinkedIn:

• Update your profile using your resume as a guide;
• Build your network through your email address book, former classmates and former employers;
• Establish context when sending LinkedIn invitations;
• Seek out and give recommendations;
• Find out where people with your background are working
• Make a target list of companies; get connected with these professionals;
• Spend at least 5 minutes or so daily, providing regular updates/commenting on topics, submitting links to your latest articles, blogs, etc;
• Join relevant industry associations and groups like- ISSA, ISC2.

Twitter

Twitter describes itself as a service for friends, family and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: "What are you doing?" Updating with 140 characters is simple, short and to the point. These updates are addressed as "tweets".

Twitter seems to be the place to go both for personal and professional networking. "Twitter offers employers an alternative to big online job boards as a way to find and attract a large pool of candidates," says Massa. "The benefit is that employers like us can post short job announcements and get immediate feedback from followers." In addition employers use Twitter to establish a company image to users who are "social-media-savvy job hunters."

Twitter is used to reach a much larger audience. People can also retweet user's tweets. This can cause tweets to go viral and spread across the platform, giving users as much visibility as possible. If candidates are looking to pursue confidential job search activities twitter is not recommended as what users post is basically for the world to see.

"Twitter has an ease of use and a high potential to be viral, this is great, but can also hurt users in the end," says Porfilio.