Many college students join the Greek systems on their campus for housing, a meal plan and a place to socialize. Some also realize that it is a great way to build a professional network before they have to start the job search process at the end of their college years. Even if you are long out of school and in what career development theorists call the “maintenance stage” of your career, you should still put your Greek affiliation on your resume.

Fraternity and sorority membership benefits go way beyond building a professional network. Your affiliation helps reach out to hiring managers who have either been a member themselves or who know the value of participation in the Greek system. This could be the tipping point in your favor for getting that first interview. The Greek bond of fraternity brothers or sorority sisters may be enough to get a hiring manager to want to help you.

Greek system participation on your resume is a plus because it demonstrates that you know about teamwork. Many Greek organizations also participate in public service projects or what is known as philanthropic work. This shows your willingness to volunteer and give back to your community.

Get involved with the alumni group associated with your Greek chapter. Look for all of the places your alumni group may have networks set-up-your alumni association, Facebook or even on  LinkedIn.  People often feel uncomfortable networking with friends and colleagues with whom they have not spoken in many years. However, these types of alumni groups are set up to make networking easy. They also give an opportunity to help the active student chapters on campus, giving you more public service points on your resume.

You’ve likely heard of social media. You probably have a Facebook account and you may even use Twitter on a regular basis. If you’re really social media savvy, then you might have bought into the Pinterest craze as well. But do you know which social media website you should be on if you want to land a professional job that leads to a rewarding career?

If you said LinkedIn, kudos to you. You’re ahead of the game.

LinkedIn is the social media website for professionals. It’s where professionals go to network with each other, discuss business around the water cooler, secure their next position with a new company, and to close sales if they want to do business with other professionals.

Creating your LinkedIn profile is the first step. Your LinkedIn profile is your social media resume. It’s not a traditional resume in the traditional resume format. But it does contain all the same information that a traditional resume contains – or it should.

Your LinkedIn profile should have, at a minimum, the following information:

• Name of present employer and your position/title
• Previous employers and your positions/titles to at least 5-10 years back
• Your contact information
• Links to websites you own,  manage, or contribute to
• Links to online portfolios if you are a creative person
• A well-written summary of your professional experience geared toward the position that you want to obtain
• A list of associations and other organizations you are member of
• Use of keywords that are searchable and that brand you within your niche

This is just a start. Think of your social media profiles as online calling cards. Other professionals will look at your profiles to get a glimpse of who you are and what you have to offer. Make it easy for them.

LinkedIn has become one of the most effective social networking sites for business professionals. Some people have used it to find better jobs within their industry while others do well using it for prospecting. Whether you are actively searching for a new career, or just checking out what opportunities are out there, having a strong LinkedIn profile is a must.

Not sure how to get your LinkedIn profile ready for the job search? Here are some tips to get your started…

 

1. Write a dynamic headline with a summary on your profile. Use your most important keywords in both for search engine optimization purposes, but speak directly to the person you’d most like to connect with. Keep it concise and communicate clearly.
2. Use a professional photo that makes you look serious about doing business. Don’t use a full body shot or a photo that includes other people. Use a great head shot and smile.
3. When you include a link to your website, select the “other” block and use keywords so that you can build better inbound links to your web properties.
4. Include a call to action in your profile. Say something like “to get more prospects for your business in a shorter time, call xxx-xxx-xxxx or message me directly through LinkedIn”.
5. Get rid of LinkedIn’s dynamic URL. They’re ugly and ineffective. Instead, edit the link and use your name.
6. Make sure to complete your education and experience sections. Again, use keywords. Keywords help to ensure that your LinkedIn profile can be found in the search engines.
7. Proofread your profile before saving it. Be sure to correct any spelling and/or punctuation errors. Your profile is a reflection of you, so you want it to look professional. Consider having a friend or colleague look over it before you publish it.
8. Is your profile public? It should be. Making connections with others in your industry is key to staying in touch with job openings, industry trends, etc.
9. Ask people you know and with whom you have done business to “recommend” you. DO NOT blast all of your contacts and ask for a recommendation. Only ask people you know and have done business with.
10. Finally, add a few widgets to your profile. You can add your blog feed, Twitter feed, and other widgets that help flesh out who you are.

If you follow these 10 tips to improve your LinkedIn profile you’ll find yourself making more contacts and quite possibly, score your next big career opportunity through LinkedIn.

Social media is a massive part of many of our lives now that using it seems almost second nature. Whether we are liking Facebook statuses, tweeting our friends or sending photos via Tumblr, we are all used to making the most of social networking. In fact, we also know that it can help us to keep in touch with friends, get back in touch with old friends and even to meet new people!

What many people don’t realize is the benefit that they can have if they use social media for job search. Fair enough. You might not be able to “tweet” to apply for a job vacancy, but there are plenty of ways to use social media to your advantage when you are job hunting.

In fact, there are even social networking websites that are aimed towards professionals. They allow you to create an online version of your resume, connect with colleagues and employers and meet new people. It is a great way of networking and getting the inside information on companies and any vacancies that may be coming up! Remember that it has always been “not what you know but who you know.” By getting involved in social media job hunting you can be sure that you are making the most of every avenue open to you when it comes to enhancing your career and getting the job of your dreams.

Once you join one of these websites you will see that there are loads of other people already using them – which you can always use to your advantage!

A lot of people are unemployed these days. But they don’t have to be – not for long. Not if they beat feet and hit the pavement.

Looking for a job is itself hard work. It’s a full-time job just to find a job. You have to find prospective employers, research them, put together a resume and a cover letter, send it off to the decision maker, then wait for them to call and set up an interview. And you should be doing that several times a day.

After that, you go to the interview, spend some time getting to know the interviewer and answering his or her questions, and then wait for a followup. If you do well they’ll call you in for a second interview, or a test, or offer you a job. The entire process can take weeks or months.

But where do you search for jobs? What resources do you use? Here are 5 resources you can use right now to find your next job.

1. The Internet – Search for “job” and your industry, or the title of the position you want to find. Look for companies that are hiring or have posted wanted ads online.
2. LinkedIn – Search the companies on LinkedIn and see if the companies you are interested in are hiring. Or connect with people who work there and ask them about openings.
3. Unemployment Office - Your city should have an unemployment office. This is usually where you go to fill out the paperwork for your unemployment insurance compensation. They also provide job search resources.
4. Executive Recruiters – Often called “headhunters,” their sole job is to find qualified executives and place them with companies that need their skills. They get paid a commission when they find a suitable placement so it doesn’t cost you anything to send them your resume.
5. Online Job Boards – Many of these are industry-specific or cater to a particular profession. But they are valuable resources even if general in nature.

Find more job search resources here.

Since a lot of businesses now use the internet to check potential employees, it’s very important to know what your personal brand says about you. So, how do you do that.

For starters, search for your own name on Google to see what comes up about you. Sometimes, there will even be other people with the same name so you need to make sure you know which searches are relevant to you.

Google will find you especially if you have any Google accounts such as email, Google Voice or Google plus. Additionally, make sure your social networking pages are more professional than casual.

Be careful of the things you post on networking sites. You don’t want it coming back to bite you, and it will if you aren’t careful. It doesn’t matter what others are posting on their own sites, but if you are trying to build a brand, yours needs to be more professional than that.

Register for online forums that are relevant to your type of skills so that you can build your personal brand better. Forums are an excellent way to find business relationships and information.

The more you keep your presence alive on the internet, the easier it will be for potential employers to find you and to become acquainted with who you are.

Last, but not least, tailor your resume so that it details all the relevant skills you have and your expertise. Once that is done, post your resume in as many places as possible on the Internet. Before long, you will have built a professional brand that others will contact you instead of you always having to seek job positions.

There was a time when job seekers only had to be concerned about background and reference checks. That seemed intrusive enough. Now comes along social media and the possible damage it can do to your job search.

Almost everyone is on social media sites now, which is great. People can connect now like they never have before. But, here is a big BUT, potential employers can see this as well during the hiring process. When building a personal brand, this will all become a part of that brand as well.

Potential employers will do a Gooogle search of your name to find out more about you. This is not illegal and is becoming more popular with employers. This is an excellent way for them to really know who they are interviewing.

Some things you can do to prevent your personal life from spilling into the interview process is:

• Remove anything on social media sites that may not picture you in a good light. Photos, comments and personal views. You can set your profile to private so they will only see basic information about you. It might not be a good idea if they see you with a drink in your hand in a bar or something.
• Update all business social media sites with an updated resume, pertinent business information and a tasteful photo.
• Do not use silly email addresses like “want2chat” or “prowler” or something to that effect. You will want an email address that is much more professional.
• Do the same type of search on potential employers. Use sites like LinkedIn to see what type of business they are, what they are talking about and who works there. This gives you excellent leverage during the interview process as they will be impressed with your questions and statements about the company. They will know you have done your homework.

If you are not sure what is going to pop up about you or how to prevent it, there are always companies that can help you clean your act up. They can search through a lot of venues to make sure that nothing embarrassing will affect your job search.

You’ve done everything you can possibly think of to get your executive resume out to businesses and still it’s hard to find a job. What else can you do? Think about social media sites such as Twitter.

Many people now use tweets to get their resumes out to businesses faster. It’s also a great place to look for jobs. A lot of companies are now advertising online versus the regular way of newspapers and job boards. It’s also very easy to tweet a resume.

As many know, tweets are usually only 140 characters or less. You don’t put your complete resume there; it’s impossible. But, you can do special coding in the tweet in order to link it to your resume.

Hashtags are used when searching for the best phrase for the type of job you are looking for. For example, the # sign will go before the phrase, such as #executivejobs. Place this in your tweet box and a number of phrases will appear for you to choose from.

You will need a Twitter account and once you have that you can enter the hashtags of your choice. You will also want to save your resume on your computer as a .DOC, RTF, PDF or TXT file.

You can use third-party resume tweeting service like TweetMyResume to share your resume online. When that is accomplished, you can add a tweet like #resume and add it to your tweet in order to share it. Also, put in your profile what job skills and the type of job you are looking for. Prospective employers will see your tweet and possibly contact you about an interview.

Social media has become the proving ground for job searches and resumes. In addition to Twitter, you can also use LinkedIn, Facebook and others. Make sure you retweet your resume weekly to keep it fresh and on top of other resume tweets. Hundreds of people have founds jobs by doing this on Twitter. This just may be the way to get that job you have been waiting around for.

With all the new technology available on the Internet today, there is absolutely no reason anyone should simply stop once a resume has been completed and sent. There is a wide world of other venues just waiting for you to use them to market your personal brand. Blogging is only part of it.

Some may think blogging and job searches are two different things. They are, but they aren’t. There has never been a better time to be able to talk to people, to get the word out about you and your skills than blogging.

Build a blog site that highlights your job skills and your previous jobs. Talk about something every day. Add links to your resume and use the social networks to retweet or repost your site.

There are numerous job boards for you to use to post your resume, whether it’s an executive resume, professional or entry level. And there are people who will retweet your blog post so others can see it. Before long, you have reached thousands of people. Before, you would have sent it to only a few. So, what’s smarter?

Twitter has a very easy way to help individuals with their blog posts and to be able to integrate both together. Facebook does as well, and LinkedIn too.

Now, you can increase your visibility and get more options available to you during your job search. Take a chance and see how much fun it is and how much it will help at the same time.

Before you send your next resume out, give blogging and social media sites a try. You just may have more opportunities than you originally thought.

Finding the right Social Media balance takes more than just knowing how to update your profiles. Firing off quick Twitter updates or Facebook comments will not get you noticed on job boards or help you find open positions.

If you’re not receiving the right kind of attention through Social Media, you should change your strategy. You must be able to connect with your Social Media peers. It’s not as simple as it seems and you must be diligent.

Learning on the fly can be hard, but these tips will help you on your way:

1. Update your LinkedIn profile with the most accurate, up-to-date information.

I cannot advocate this enough – you need to a strong representation of your talents, skills and experience in order to have a fully functional LinkedIn account. Review your Summary and Specialties areas with appropriate keywords, phrases and any information prospective employers look for. Have past coworkers give you quality recommendations. Return the favor with similar recommendations from people who have helped you. Build your network by inviting past colleagues and friends who you want to stay connected with.

2. Post your resume to the right online job board.

You want to be highly visible on job sites so that HR managers can find your resume. Some HR managers search job boards, LinkedIn and niche job sites – you need to have your resume in the right place so that when the opportunity comes along you have your resume where people can find it.

3. Update LinkedIn status bar along with your job board resumes.

LinkedIn sends weekly emails to your connections which gives a summary of the activities their connections are involved in. Updating your status allows these connections to know that you are actively looking for a new position.

Recruiters who browse job sites also get weekly updated resume notifications. Whenever you update your resume or save a new one, it gets posted to the job board, allowing HR managers to see your resume more often. Get your name out there!

4. Network!

Talk to your family, friends, colleagues, or anyone. Talk to anyone who might know of an open position with a company you like. You can have them make introductions through LinkedIn to the appropriate person within their company. Many people find their jobs through networking situations, so it’s always a good idea to talk to people and explain that you are interested in their company or open position. Don’t rely on email. You want to be able to actually speak with the right person – putting a face to a voice or an ear to words will go a lot further than simply emailing someone.

5. Create your professional online identity.

This is a combined effort of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ in a coordinated effort to showcase your talents, skills and expertise. Building yourself up online gives you credibility beyond simply seeing a resume. If HR managers can find out pertinent information about you online, it will improve your chances.