Whether you are a job seeker, entrepreneur, or company the first step in engaging with your targeted audience is to become a go-to source of valuable information. The idea is to stand apart from your competition and be relied upon and trusted by your network. The best method to begin this process is to understand how to find information that will make a difference to your network and establish you as that go-to source. The first step is to research, read, collect, and aggregate information.

Step 1: Set up a Google Reader

RSS logo courtesy of RSS wiki

Google Reader allows you to aggregate RSS feeds from blogs and websites that contain valuable information. The reader is a storage area you can set up like your own custom newspaper. Tip: You can share parts or all of your Google Reader with your audience. This is a great method to help your network discover new information and what you are reading.

Step 2: Join Twitter.com

Twitter, first and foremost, is the resource where I find 80% of my research and value content. The strategy is simple:

• Identify your industry, niche, people, associations, companies and news sources
• Utilize the “Search” box and input names of people, companies, industry, or company names
• Follow those sources of information. Ex I follow @guykawasaki, @peterkim, @chrisbrogan because they write blogs, offer value, and offer free download resources
• Once you begin following someone or organization of interest go to their Twitter home page and check to see who they follow. This is called mining your resources resources.

Step 3: Global Social Media Network

Blogger Ray Schiel authors one of the best resources for anyone interested in valuable information on social media, blogging, and Web 2.0. Go to Ray’s “Resource” page to find the following:

• A list of 105 Corporate blogs from Rubbermaid to Clorox to Hewlett Packard
• 75+ Corporate Facebook pages, how they are set up, and how they engage their audience
• Dozens of Podcasts
• A list of over 150 entrepreneurs, companies, global corporations in every niche on Twitter

“Hiring managers are using the Internet to get a more well-rounded view of job candidates in terms of their skills, accomplishments, and overall fit within the company”–Rosemary Haefner Vice President of Human Resource Careerbuilder.com

Susan and I presented our workshop “Web 2.0’s Impact on Job Seekers: The Changing Roles of the Resume, Job Search, and Job Seeker” at CSIX this past Tuesday to a packed house of over 110 hopeful job seekers. As we settled into facilitating this workshop, we realized that for the first time we were about to present our complete thesis and theme.

We have been supporting blogging as a more powerful and proactive “living” resume since June of 2008. Yet Tuesday was our first opportunity to evangelize the emergence of a paradigm shift, where social media tools and Web 2.0 strategies replaced the resume, as a job seeker’s main marketing tool.

Web 2.0 Paradigm Shift in Communications

The decades of mass media dominance and stranglehold over the control and flow of information is waning. Today is the greatest time in human history for communication, connectivity, collaboration, networking, and delivering your message of value, expertise, and experience to your strategicially targeted hiring managers and companies.

There is a global conversation going on between bloggers, people networking and finding opportunities on Linkedin, resources and messages being broadcast on Twitter, and companies searching for human capital talent throughout the social media stratosphere.

Companies Adopting Web 2.0 and Blogs: Tools to Promote Business

Our friend and blogger Ray Schiel, of globalsocialmedianetwork.com, has produced a massive resource page that outlines the participation of 105 major corporations in blogging, 64 on Facebook pages, 12 podcasting, 12 crowdsourcing sites, and 100’s of companies microblogging on Twitter.

Job Seekers’ Tip: These social media tools are being used by major corporations to promote their products, services, and business practices. If you want to connect with your target company, and they utilize social media tools, then this is a major opportunity to connect as well as demonstrate your understanding of their efforts.

Companies Monitoring Web 2.0 and Social Media: Screening and Hiring Practices

Not only are major corporations utilizing these tools for their own business practices, they are using them to find new talent and perform due diligence on potential applicants. Computer World’s “One in Five Employers Uses Social Networks in Hiring Process” outlines a Careerbuilder.com survey of 31,000 employers. The results are very compelling:

1. 24% of hiring managers “found content on social networks that helped convince them to hire a candidate.” In addition hiring managers said that “profiles showing a professional image and solid references can boost a candidates chances for a job.”

2. 22% of the 31,000 employers said they “peruse social networks to screen candidates.”

3. 9% more of the 31,000 employers said they are planning to do so

4. A total of 9,600 employers are going to search for candidates and perform due diligence rather than rely on resumes to tell a job seekers story

Deliver Your Value First

The conclusion is that job seekers must deliver their value first before attempting to deliver their resume. Social media and Web 2.0 are changing job search. The resume is no longer a job seeker’s marketing tool. It is up to job seekers, in this very rough job market, to utilize these tools in order to stand apart and become memorable.

“It’s a huge disservice to the economy, in that it means there are highly productive, hardworking people who are not maximizing their potential,” —Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist for the Economic Policy Institute.

What Ms. Shierholz addresses is the growing problem within the employment market that often gets ignored: underemployment. According to the WashingtonPost.com’s article citing Bureau of Labor Statistics, to understand “underemployment” look at the groups of people measured:

1. Total number of unemployed workers.
2. People who work part-time when they would prefer full time work.
3. Passive job seekers already in the workforce who have discontinued looking for jobs, perhaps because they gave up searching for one.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the “percentage of the workforce that is underemployed is at 12.5%.” That represents the highest level in over 15 years and easily surpasses the level of roughly 7% in 2000 during the dot.com implosion.

Although the government does not count unemployed workers who are overqualifed for their current jobs, it does show a startling rise in workers who work part time, but would prefer full time work from 2.8 million, 12 months ago, to 7.3 million today.

Analysis

Continued corporate layoffs and elimination of positions will further enrich the unemployed workforce with higher levels of educated workers. The competition for jobs, even temporary low paying jobs, will add to the stress already associated with current market conditions.

What Do We Do?

Education and action are the steps necessary for people to stand apart and differentiate themselves from the competition they face. Please consider the following steps as an outline:

1. Education: You must be willing to learn new skills and stay informed on news and trends within your chosen field. Reading is key. RSS subscribe to newspapers and association newsletters that focus on your industry or employment news.

2. Networking: You should be willing to attend networking events related to your industry of choice, job fairs, employment groups, and any association that will provide support in your job search.

3. Research: You must research your industry and companies of choice. Learn their challenges, their pain points, and analyze how you and your skills could make a difference to their bottom line. Build a case, like an attorney, on why a company should hire you.

4. Adopt: If your companies of choice have corporate blogs, social media tools, and other Web 2.0 campaigns, this is a signal for you to become an adopter. If you educate and adopt a blog into your employment campaign, a robust Linkedin presence, and you become an advocate of online networking through social media, you will stand apart and differentiate yourself from the competition.

5. Employment Campaign: This is an organized action plan. The plan begins with a value assessment to help the job seeker find his/her expertise, knowledge, experience. The next step is to craft this value into a message. Once your message is created, we implement a plan that incorporates direct marketing principles to strategically target the hiring managers and companies you wish to interview. The final piece is the establishment of your own blog as the vehicle to deliver your message of value and as a centerpiece-hub to point people to your value.

Response Mode Warning: Don’t Be Like The Other Guy

If you are a job seeker and you are limiting your job search to creating multiple resumes, networking periodically and underutilizing Linkedin as a tool, then you are doing what the majority of unemployed job seekers are doing: the same old thing.

If you truly want to stand apart, then you must get away from response mode and get into action mode. Consider the 5 steps described as a beginning. The true winners in the competition for the finite number of jobs are those people who build an employment campaign and work their action plan every day.

Jobseekers beware. There is a new trend on the horizon that goes beyond Web 1.0 “brochure-ware” like resumes, referrals from associates or friends, and status quo job seeking activities: social network screening.

According to ComputerWorld’s Heather Havenstein’s article, One in Five Employers Uses Social Networks in Hiring Process: “the number of hiring managers turning to social networks like Facebook to delve into a candidates’ online behavior is increasing quickly: Some 22% of employers said they already peruse social networks to screen candidates, while an additional 9% said they are planning to do so. Only 11% of managers used the technology in 2006.”

Jobseekers Opportunity

CareerBuilder’s survey, which polled some 31,000 employers, revealed that “24% of hiring managers found content on social networks that helped convince them to hire a candidate.”

More pointedly “Hiring managers are using the internet to get a more well-rounded view of job candidates in terms of their skills, accomplishments, and overall fit within the company” according to CareerBuilder’s Vice President of Human Resources Rosemary Haefner.

How Do You Stand Out? Your Differentiating Factor

A robust profile will take you only so far in your quest to show the value, expertise, and experience you will bring to any company. How do you stand apart from the competition?

The Solution Part 1

In a fantastic Wall St. Journal article by Joann Lublin, Networking? Here’s How to Stand Out, the answer takes on more clarity as online networking consultant Scott Allen describes the new trend.

“For job hunters who use networking Web sites like Linkedin a more-sophisticated approach is necessary. When you invite someone to join you on Linkedin, include a personalized offer of help, such as an introduction to a customer OR a useful link to a relevant article“.

Blogging to Employment

The dawning of a new age is upon us as the Web 1.0 brochure-ware resume strategy is no longer the most important strategy for jobseekers. As foreshadowed by Scott Allen, jobseekers must be willing and able to deliver their knowledge, expertise, and experience. But how?

1. Employment Campaign: Create an employment campaign that utilizes the strategies of a direct marketing campaign to target hiring managers, companies, industries, and niches.
2. Blogging: Create a blog that is the “killer” Web 2.0 delivery system, and centerpiece, that supports a campaign that provides exposure and a method that is proactive and not reactive.

Analysis

The move away from resumes as the delivery system for your value message is only the beginning of a bigger trend in the process of finding a job. Today’s jobseeker must be aware that hiring managers and companies are being forced, in many cases, kicking and screaming into the Web 2.0 world of blogs and social media networking. As more and more companies adopt these Web 2.0 tools, they will specifically seek out those candidates who have positioned themselves on the Web and those candidates who have the Web 2.0 skill sets to prove it.

Related articles:

Susan Mernit’s Social Media Must Have’s for the Recently Laid Off

Inner Architect’s Blogging to Employment

Susan Mernit is one of the most respected and recognized experts in the field of social media with a focus in “web strategy-product development.” As a former VP at Netscape and AOL and a senior Director of Product development at Yahoo, Susan understands the social media space like few in the industry.

It was of great interest when she published her recent blog article “Susan sez: Social media must haves for the recently laid off.” Her 8 tips for the unemployed are listed here with my comments. Pay attention because this advice is worthy of serious consideration.

1. Facebook: Susan- “Facebook is also a rich source of friends and connections that can lead you to opportunities, jobs, events.”

dean: Yes it can if you have a robust profile that outlines your skill set, what you are looking to accomplish, and your value. In addition make your landing page rich with video, links back to that blog you are going to establish, and your profile on Linkedin.com.

2. twitter: Susan-“a micro blogging platform that shares your updates with people around the world. . . is the newest way to interact with people in the digital world.:

dean: I will go that one further as I believe twitter will surpass many sites as one of the most important social media networking strategies available. I call it my “sound bite sized real time mini press release.” My article describing this strategy for the real estate industry can be modified for a person looking for employment.

3. Your name web site or blog: Susan-“We are truly at the moment when everyone on the planet should that the first thing that comes up when their name is Googled is their very own web site. “

dean: I completely concur. A blog more than a website, unless combined, gives you the chance to populate your page 1 and 2 for a Google search on your name or company name. It gives you a tool to defend your reputation, challenge erroneous information, and block unwanted information on your top page.

4. Wordpress and others: Susan-“This is a continuation of #3 and has to do with what sort of content management system, aka blogging software, you want to put at your URL”

dean: Wordpress.com is the best, most flexible, most robust blogging platform on the planet right now. If you want plug n play, go with Wordpress.com. If you want software to host on your own domain, go with Wordpress.org. Either way begin your writing platform to support your branding “You” and your employment campaign. You do have an employment campaign don’t you?

5. Update your Linkedin profile and import your contacts: “Maybe you’re into LinkedIn, maybe you’re not. If you’re out looking for work, or consulting, you should be. Into it, that is.”

dean: Linkedin is the most important business niche networking site on the internet today bar none. If you are not on Linkedin, fully understanding it’s features, and unaware of the opportunities it offers, you are truly missing the proverbial boat-big time!

6. Flickr: “For the full social media impact, you want to also have a public flickr account.”

dean: This is a case where you can expand your contacts by showing your hobbies or adding pictures that are business related. Your portfolio can be used for your blog or website. Flickr can also provide a new opportunity to integrate into a new community.

7. Join Meetup.com: “Basically, what meet up does is give you the ability to form a group, like I just got laid off in Oakland.com, and recruit members and have meetings. However, and perhaps more importantly, it gives you a chance to search for groups you might want to join and events you might want to go to. . . Meetup is particularly useful for professional groups and association.”

dean: Meetup.com is a great opportunity to find liked minded individuals who are open mined to sharing and learning new ideas. If you wish to network and learn your own value, test giving your value, and possibly meet a great connection, then consider this site.

8. Usage: “Building a presence with social media is just like doing laundry–it’s repetitive, with a cycle of wipe, rinse, repeat. The trick is to modify your behavior so that you’re connecting to people in your professional community via tools like twitter. . . “

dean: It is the biggest marketing opportunity since the telephone, the advent of Word over white out, and the development of business cards. This is the most amazing time in history for communication and connection with a global conversation via blogging and social-niche media sites providing the vehicle.

Question: Are you ready to claim your voice amongst the crowd, develop your writing platform, and hone your brand “You”? It’s all up to you.