Job Hunting

Perhaps I'm getting older in an ever increasingly complex online world, but the job hunt has me all "a twitter" right now.  The last time I was on the hunt was three years ago, and the premier job board was still monster.com, although there were several offshoots that were getting much more specific to certain industries.  This time, I have found that things have changed yet again, and the best place to look is now firmly in the hands of a social media site, LinkedIn.  This led me down the road to examine my other social media accounts and connections.  Updating the information on them has been completed, and I have cross-linked them as much as they have allowed me to do, and where they don't inherently do this for me, I have done so manually by posting the links to the status updates fields on all of them.

While all the above is all great, in the end, it's rather like climbing to the highest tower in a city and shouting from the rooftops.  Not only will your words be drowned out by the din of the others, there is no expectation of a reply worth pursuing.  Is this really good networking?  Sure, the friends and followers on the social media sites have been picked carefully, or at least with an eye toward some personal gain, but it's a far cry from showing up at a company and handing your resume to them personally.

I have never been very comfortable with selling myself, nor being an active participant in social media in general.  My comfort zone is firmly on the right hand side of someone else as a trusted advisor, being an expert in my field, and my social circle is almost exclusively limited to my own wife and kids.  I truly envy people that can thrive in the limelight of the media, be the social butterfly at any event, or those that seem to have a natural ability to land a really great job.  I've learned what I needed to over the years, and followed the trends as much as I was able, but the one factor that has been the most useful over the years has been to be in the right place at the right time when the new job came along.

I only hope this factor comes my way this time as well.  In the end, I've done what I can to encourage this to happen, even extending myself outside of my normal comfort zone tremendously, yet I can't help but wonder if there is something I can be doing that will further this cause.  Get myself in front of more people who can see what my skillset may bring to them.  On LinkedIn, I could try to friend all the recruiters I can.  On Twitter, I could hashtag the popular trends with a link to my LinkedIn profile.  I can blog here.  I can spread the word on the other social networks.  Does this cross any boundaries or present me as an annoying person?  I am simply not sure about the perception such actions would be viewed.  That having been said, the end may justify the means here, all I can hope is that it does not tarnish my online reputation.