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July 15, 2009

"Hire Me" Nation: Using the Web & social media to get a job

My story today about people launching "hire me" Websites was sparked by "retweets" last month about Matt Bivons, who launched an online drive to get a job at Blue Sky Factory, a Baltimore-based email marketing firm. He calls it BSFShouldHire.me.

Who was this guy? Why was he doing this? Will we all eventually have our own "hire me" Websites? I spoke to Matt early on, and then ruminated on the phenomenon for a few weeks, poking around here and there and trying to see if anyone else was doing this. I started finding more and more sites like Matt's when I simply Googled "shouldhireme.com" or "hireme.com." (Here's a short list of some I perused.)

Quickly, I learned that Jamie Varon, a 24-year-old from California who launched TwitterShouldHireMe.com, may have been among the first -- if not the first -- to do something like this (at least since Twitter and Facebook have been around.)

Two people I interviewed who didn't make it into my print story were Susan Lewis and Eric Barker. But it wasn't because their efforts and ideas weren't remarkable. On the contrary:

Susan, 39, a marketing pro from Dallas, launched SusanHiresABoss.com, which turns the typical job hunt on its ear. If you're a boss, you can't hire Susan. She's gonna hire you. She graduated from Seth Godin's informal MBA program in New York this year (a six-month boot camp for smart, social-media-savvy people) and launched her site.

Susan told me about 30 companies expressed interest in her (30!), and she's narrowed the field down to about three potential employers. "Some (opportunities) could be project work," Lewis said. "There's one I might end up making an offer to."

Eric Barker, 36, of Los Angeles, told me how he's been running inexpensive ads on Facebook to target employers he wants to work for. The way it works is he puts up an ad that he targets to employees of a particular company who happen to be on Facebook. When you buy an ad on Facebook, the site offers you granular tools to target your ad to people, say, who claim they work for a certain company. The ads get him noticed and he gets calls from recruiters.

Barker, a former Hollywood screenwriter with an MBA, said his Facebook campaign has cost him little more than $100. He's targeted ads to Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Youtube and IDEO -- basically companies that are in media. He's gotten contacts and interviews, ironically, with other companies who were impressed by the ad.

He said he "went nuclear" with the Facebook approach because of the rough job market and he needed to get attention quickly. "My background is in Hollywood," he said. "Nothing in Hollywood gets done effectively through formal channels. Everything is done by friend of a friend and reputation. The real world is not that much different."

His dream job would be something in product marketing and/or development, he told me.

About his Facebook approach, he said: "We're all marketers now, like it or not. Getting access [through the Web and interactive social media tools] is easy. It's now all about marketing and branding yourself."

If you're curious about using Facebook -- and even LinkedIn -- as ways to advertise yourself to a new job, you should check out some tips from Willy Franzen over at the One Day, One Job blog.

Let me know if you have success with your online campaigns to get the job of your dreams (or even just a job your mildly happy about, especially if it involves decent pay and health bennies.)


This is an archived version of the technology blog. For updated coverage, see the current baltTech location: baltimoresun.com/balttech

Comments

Great post. A big aspect of social media that older generations are over looking is how younger generations use the tools is very different and creative ways. The people who don't 'get' the benefit of services like Twitter are the ones who are trying to use these new tools in old outdated ways that don't work. Social networking works best when you engage others rather than broadcast to them or only use them to gain benefit instead of offering benefit to others.

Gus:
Thanks tons for this article - describing practically how people are finding jobs!!!
We at the Jeffco Workforce Center (Golden, CO) are offering workshops to the job-seeking public. We are convinced that the "way of the social media" is the way to those jobs, and we're educating people to that end. We're movin' as fast as we can on this -- and really helping people to understand today's marketplace.
Your article/posting will really help explain why we're pushing the concept of social capital being built by using the social media -- and, of course, ALWAYS, networking.
Again, thanks!

That's really encouraging for social media buffs like myself, who are lookin for a job! Alot of folks out there - it's great to be in marketing and have tools to know what to do. I try to help others with optimizing social media, and thank you for your contributions, too - which I've just tweeted! I also know that posting this comment will pull my name up in google rankings - you gotta be in the game, right? Great stuff, thanks!

http://www.VickieSmith.com
Blog: http://www.tinyurl.com/vicksoup

Excellent article! I recently asked my readers: With 15 million people out of work,P what are YOU doing to stand out from the crowd? What will you do TOMORROW that’s different from what you did YESTERDAY? (http://undergroundjobnetwork.com/?p=1773)
These days, if you're not doing something to stand out, you need to step aside!

Gus,

This is a great story. This area is so new that most people don't know how (or are too scared) to leverage social media to get their next jobs.

I've been using social media for my own job search. I have a lot of experience in solution marketing so I started a blog on the topic. I promote the blog on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. It's been an amazing experience that helped me to get deeper into social media, which is important as a marketer. And most importantly, it lets people see my expertise in action.

Thanks!

I've been able to connect with great contacts by doing some basic research of the web and social networks. Once you have made contact, ask for help.

If social media has taught me anything, it is that (many) people are intrinsically motivated to help another member of the community. Great examples: Yahoo Answers, Wikipedia, Amazon's User Reviews.

So if any of you are intrinsically motivated to help me... I can be contacted numerous ways- Just Google - bradfwells

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About Gus G. Sentementes
Gus G. Sentementes (@gussent on Twitter) has been writing for The Baltimore Sun since 2000. He's covered real estate, business, prisons, and suburban and Baltimore City crime and cops. He was one of the first reporters at The Sun to use multimedia tools and Web applications -- a video camera, an iPhone -- to cover breaking news. He hopes to cover Maryland geeks and the gadgets and Web sites they build, and learn -- and share -- something new every day.

Gus has a wife, a young daughter and two feuding cats. They live in Northeast Baltimore.
This is an archived version of the technology blog. For updated coverage, see the current baltTech location: baltimoresun.com/balttech
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