From NPR: How To Job Hunt In The ‘Twittersphere’

by David Gorn, Posted Here 11/2/09

With the job market still in the doldrums, the tech-savvy unemployed are trying to figure out new ways to use Twitter to find jobs.

Twitter can be used to post a job, ask around about one, learn more about a potential boss or keep your network of former co-workers and friends updated on your job hunt.

Best of all, it’s free, and faster than Facebook.

Microblogging services like Twitter sound simple, but it can be really hard. If you’re a serious “Twitterer,” you have to fit incredibly complicated opinions into a compact 140 characters. That’s a real art. So why shouldn’t it be considered a job skill, as well?

Becoming An Expert On Twitter

Jen McCabe says she got her current job in San Francisco through being an avid Tweeter.

“I absolutely would not be where I am today without the following and support of the people I meet on Twitter,” said McCabe.

In fact, McCabe has been called the Queen of Twitter among her health care colleagues. She used it to become an expert in a niche field inside the health care industry and would tweet updates from conferences and comment on breaking news. Powerful people in that niche field started to notice her and follow what she had to say.

For many, Twitter is a meritocracy. You are known for what you tweet. If you come across as a smart, hard-working thoughtful person, people are going to pay attention. That’s one way to get a job.

Twitter As Networking Tool

I absolutely would not be where I am today without the following and support of the people I meet on Twitter.

- Jen McCabe

The other way to use Twitter and other microblogging networks like Pownce and Jaiku is to simply network. These sites used to be mostly used by youngsters — but life on Twitter has changed. A significant percentage of users now are 30 and older, and they’re using Twitter to network for jobs.

That’s according to Josh Bernoff of the Forrester Group, a technology research firm. And for him, one particular feature of Twitter makes it invaluable for job hunters.

“The thing that makes a difference for people looking for jobs is the ability to retweet,” said Bernoff.

That’s when people pass along your tweet to other people in a different network. Bernoff says it’s a cyberextension of the adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s whom you know.”

“That creates a real echo effect for people who’ve got friends who have a lot of friends,” said Bernoff.

Filtering Out The Twitter Junk

Rich Trombetta has another idea. He co-founded a Web site called TweetMyJobs.com.

“We connect job seekers and job posters instantaneously via Twitter,” said Trombetta. “We take the noise out of the twittersphere.”

The idea is, there may be dozens of companies you want to follow on Twitter, but if you get every piece of info those companies tweet out, you could be swamped. So Trombetta filters out only the job-related info and sends those out as alerts. Microblogs, he says, are not just for fun anymore.

“You’re going to see that perception change as more and more businesses realize that … this could be the most powerful tool since e-mail,” said Trombetta.

So if you’re job hunting on Twitter, it’s not whom you know, or even what you know, but how you say it — 140 characters at a time….Read more here:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120015220&ft=1&f=1001

From Michelle Kraft (again)-getting institutional support for Web 2.0

A few weeks ago I [Michelle] was a part of the Technology Forum for the Midwest MLA Annual Conference in Columbus, OH.  I spoke on libraries using Twitter and Facebook.  Later I wrote a blog post linking to the slides as well more of my thoughts on the topic.

Ever since then I have gotten a few emails from people asking how they can convince their IT departments to allow Facebook and Twitter so they can reach out to library users.  I have sat down and thought of a few good arguments for librarians to use with their IT people, however upon reflection I don’t think that will be very productive.

The short of it is, the IT departments are not going to deal with security perceived issues because the librarian wants to use social networking tools.  We can plead and beg all we want but in the minds of the IT people Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. are either security risks or bandwidth hogs that have no real world use in the hospital world.  We are spinning our wheels to approach them on this, we would be better off trying to get them notify us when they mess with the IP ranges causing all sorts of havoc with the authentication systems of our online resources.  At least we can easily and directly show how that (IP ranges and the changing of them) impacts our work and that of the employees doing research at the hospital.

Recently (within the last 4-6 months) my institution opened up Facebook after years of it being blocked.  The library had no part in Facebook being unblocked.  Facebook, Twitter, and few other social networking sites are being used by my institution and other institutions for marketing, public relations, patient relations, and alumni relations  purposes.  Often an institution’s head of marketing or the CEO is the driving force behind these sites magically being unblocked.  When the Chief of Public Relations and Marketing sees that a competitor’s hospital is using Facebook and Twitter to effectively communicate to patients and market the hospital, you better believe he/she is going to want their hospital get involved too.

Who do you think IT is going to listen to, the librarian who wants to set up a Twitter feed from the catalog to the library website or the CEO who wants to use Twitter to help distribute institutional news and information?  If the CEO wants his/her institution to use these applications, IT has a little more reason to investigate and make sure these resources don’t pose a security or bandwidth threat to the institution than they do if the librarian asks.

So what do you do if your hospital hasn’t adopted these social networking applications?  I guess it all depends on the size of your hospital and how well you know the big fish.  There are a lot of recent successful examples and articles of hospitals using these things.  Perhaps if you are in a small hospital and know the big wigs fairly well you might begin sending them some of these articles.  If you are in larger hospital or you don’t have a real working relationship with your CEOs then perhaps you can start by contacting someone in marketing.  That person in marketing may not have enough clout but they might know somebody else who does.

While you as the librarian may not have the direct power to get your hospital to unblock social media sites, you might be able to influence those who do.  Social media hits many more areas than libraries.  It is a huge marketing and public relations tool that many hospitals and academic medical centers are persuing with specific marketing plans and goals….read entire post here: http://kraftylibrarian.com/?p=263

Social Media Revolution

Lots to think about in this little video!

Thanks to Brooke for the nudge!

From Michelle Kraft–Libraries Leveraging Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media

Monday afternoon I was a part of the Technology Forum for the Midwest MLA Annual Conference in Columbus, OH.  I spoke on libraries using Twitter and Facebook.

You can see my slides at http://bit.ly/hA9g0.  I specifically wanted to show examples of what other libraries were doing with these two social networking sites.  I tried to find as many medical library examples as possible (I even found one example of a hospital library).  But there were also neat things being done by other libraries and I went with those examples when I found they were doing something that the medical libraries hadn’t picked up on yet.

Some of my favorite examples:

• Weill Cornell and Loma Linda both have tied their catalog new books feed into their Twitter account. So when a new book is added to the catalog a tweet is sent out with a tinyurl.  Clicking on that tinyurl gets you to that record in the library catalog.  I thought this was cool.  I don’t know how difficult it is to set this up, perhaps somebody who has done this could comment.
• Health Library & Resource Center of El Camino Hospital put their patient education material up on their Facebook page under Notes.
• UTS Libraries (University of Technology, Sydney Libraries) use Twitter’s tweet poll feature to create a quick survey and ask for feed back on an issue.  In this case it was the use of QR codes, but almost any question could work.

I notice a lot of libraries out there dipping their toes into the social networking arena, but as I was researching this topic for the presentation, I started to notice that a lot of libraries good efforts seemed a little disjointed.  What good is having a Twitter account if you don’t list the feed on your home page.  I’ll even go a little further with that idea.  What good is even having the Twitter icon on your site if you don’t have the feed displayed anywhere on your website.  There are tons of libraries that are using Twitter as a sort of “what’s up at the library” news service.  Yet, I really couldn’t find all that many that tied this news feed into their own news feed on their own library web page.  Why?  Why do these libraries have two different news feeds?  Which on should a patron pay attention too?  We spend so much time on authority records in our catalogs and databases, yet where is our authority control on our Twitter and news information feeds?  I don’t mean specifically what they are posting but the fact that there are two (or more) sources of different news information.  This is extremely distracting.  So a library patron has to subscribe to the Twitter feed to get information and check the library’s site for information, not good….Read entire post and other great articles here: http://kraftylibrarian.com/

Who, Why & How We Serve: Healthcare Communities, Librarians & Social Media

I did not attend the MLGSCA Technology Symposium in LA in March but did view this slide presentation more than once. It did make me think, and I hope it will provoke you as well.  It told me to learn about and selectively use social media.  While I have seen and heard others, this slide show was helpful and focused. JDD

Social Networking Literacy Competencies for Librarians

Michael Stephens’ blog led me to this thought provoking presentation.  Let me know what you think!

Online Social Networking Sites and Privacy: Revisiting Ethical Considerations…

Peter Fernandez
Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources Librarian
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee USA

Introduction

Before libraries can act ethically with regard to social networking sites, they must first have a nuanced understanding of the potential consequences of these sites. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are ultimately motivated by profit, a goal that can undermine user privacy, and that actively relies on the sharing of personal information. In contrast, most libraries in the US have an ethical commitment to patron privacy. Yet libraries are also committed to outreach and social networking sites provide a forum where libraries can create an online presence and spread awareness about their services. These diverse motivations provide a recipe for conflict that is too often ignored. Libraries may be able to appropriate the outreach opportunities of social networking sites while simultaneously maintaining ethical standards; however, responsible appropriation of technology requires that librarians reevaluate their commitment to privacy in the context of social networking sites that have a different conceptual understanding of privacy….See entire post at:  http://libr.unl.edu:2000/LPP/fernandez.htm

Are you LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a social professional network designed to enable members to connect, find industry-specific answers and solutions, find former friends and colleagues, and advance one’s career. 

A group  called Phoenix Friends of UA SIRLS has been established to share information and wisdom about librarianship and to support students, potential students, and friends of the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science.  to join this group, register with LinkedIn and search for this group.  You might find colleagues and friends who might be of assistance in your job search or career advancement. 

For more information about LinkedIn, go go:  http://www.linkedin.com/home. To join the Phoenix Friends of SIRLS visit:  http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=710457