Casual Social Media Job Searching

We’ve all heard of the importance of networking when trying to find a job. We’ve all seen the stats that say the majority of jobs come from someone in our network. It is absolutely true that you should engage your network when searching for a job. This is true in the healthcare IT world just as much as any other career. You never know the connection or resource someone in your network might have that will help you find a job.

The problem is that many don’t know how to network well. Not to mention the wide swath of people that are afraid of networking. I understand those fears. Many are afraid to admit that they don’t have a job. Others are afraid that asking someone for help will make them look weak or will annoy the person their asking. Plus, they don’t want to go around “begging” their connections for help. These fears are real, but I think some of them can be overcome with what I call casual social media networking.

If you’ve built up a network of connection on one or more of the social media networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc, then you have a lot of options. For those afraid to reach out to people directly, just casually post about your job search on social media. You’ll be amazed at the response.

You can even be creative in what you post. Instead of begging for help “I need a job. Can someone help?” you can post “Had a great interview today for a new job. Looks like a great opportunity to use my EHR skills.” Both posts accomplish the same goal. They inform your social network that you’re interviewing for new jobs, but the later comes across very different than the former. I call this casual social media job searching.

In the case of LinkedIn, you can do the same just by changing your career history to show the end of your last job. Your network will be informed of the change and those people will have you front of mind if they see any available opportunities.

I know this works, because my cousin recently did this. I’m not sure if she meant to do it, but she posted about her move to a new city and interview for a new job on Facebook. I saw it and told her to send me her resume so I could send it to a contact I had in the area.

It turns out that if you’ve done good work and have the respect of your colleagues and clients, then many of them are more than happy to do what they can to help you find a new job. However, if they don’t know you’re looking, there’s no way they can help. Try casual social media job searching and see if it can help you find a job.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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