If you’re like me, you don’t feel satisfied sitting around with a pretty LinkedIn profile waiting for recruiters to email you out of the blue. (Although it’s nice, it’s simply not a strategy.) You need to be more proactive, more in control. This post will show you how to get job interviews by next week by directly reaching out to new employers. Warning: Before you start reaching out to potential new employers on Li...

Thanks to Facebook’s dominance as the leading social network, combined with ways recruiters are using it to locate talent, if you’re serious about finding work, you must have a presence on this site. There are three reasons Facebook is so essential when you’re looking for a job in today’s social media–focused world: 1. Most jobs come from referrals. If most jobs come from referrals, and most referrals come from friends and...

Use Google AdWords, the search engine’s pay-per-click advertising tool, to attract the attention of specific hiring managers and decision makers. Adwords enables you to take up an ad on the search results page of any keywords you choose. You can use a similar technique on the ad networks of Bing, Yahoo!, Facebook, and even Twitter. Go to Google Adwords and sign in with your Google ID.If you don’t already have a Google ID,...

If you can’t tell a potential new employer what makes you different (better) than the other 118 candidates, how will they ever know? This is actually harder than it sounds. When I first started working, I landed a huge deal. I was at a solar energy installer in Kathmandu back in 2004 and the market was hot. In fact, I remember that the customers paid in cash. I couldn’t keep all the bundles of paper money in the small bag...

Twitter is a great tool for finding job openings in your local area. You’ll find job recruiters and hiring managers tweeting about jobs they’re trying to fill. Here’s how you can find them on Twitter: 1. Head to Twitter Advanced Search. 2. In the field named This exact phrase, enter the name of your town or city. 3. In Hashtags, enter Jobs. 4. Press Search. 5. Scroll through the list of recent tweets and click the pictures....

Don’t get bogged down in keeping up with the seeming constant changes of social media, just keep focused on your goals and how these tools can help you achieve them. For people just beginning to use social media to advance their careers, a common complaint is that it changes so much. For example, they often cite the most recent Facebook privacy change or LinkedIn’s new user interface. A good army general doesn’t get...

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools to help you redefine yourself and move your career in a new direction. Taking your career in a new direction is a bold move that requires framing your proven skills for a whole new purpose. Identify your transferable skills, and then consider the following three ideas for using LinkedIn to advance your career change. Use the profile headline to reveal what you do When setting up a...

Throughout your military career, you stood alongside your fellow soldiers or shipmates, in a sea of uniforms of the same color and design. While you may have been singled out along the way to receive special awards or medals, your daily goal was not necessarily to stand out from the crowd. As you transition into the civilian workforce and face a highly competitive job search environment, this reality is turned on its he...

I like to tell my clients they will be Googled just as surely as it will rain in Portland tonight. Do you know what they will see when they find you? Online reputation management is a critical piece of your job search. There is just no getting around it, no matter what field you are in. Quick story: When I Googled my name a year ago, I was a convicted felon and a prolific New York gynecologist, either simultaneously...

Amid the swarms of applicants and candidates that are fighting for jobs daily, one wonders how he or she can be heard. One way to separate yourself is by showing the value you bring to a prospective employer instead of regurgitating what you've already done. Joshua Waldman is an author (Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies), as well as a speaker and trainer, who goes around the country to help job seekers gain contro...