Hey Twitter – you find me a job yet?

Social networking is here to stay – that’s not news. But its funny how I am not hearing how it is finding people jobs. I have not heard that much about it, and I am in the industry.

Stop. I know there are people finding jobs via LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Recruiters – I know what you do for a living 🙂 Your job is to find people using all means necessary, whether you call someone on the phone or tweet them or FB them or whatever. You guys are doing an awesome job leveraging these tools.

I am referring to how people TALK about finding a job. When someone I know gets a job, I ask how did they find out, and they usually say “I found it on the web” or “my friend got me in” or something. But not as much “I found it on Facebook” or “I found it on Twitter”. Which I find interesting…

MEANWHILE…I keep hearing how friends and family are find dates on Match.com, eHarmony, J-Date or whatever.  What is wild is how people brag about finding their mate online. Their parents brag. Their siblings brag.

But why aren’t we bragging about our jobs the same way? Are we embarrassed? Is it considered weird to find your job that way? Many of the social aspects are the same.

I have a theory…people think and communicate differently professionally than they do personally. There is something about telling people about your professional experiences versus your personal experiences. Think about it – how often do you tell your parents about some meeting that you had at the office, conversely you tell everyone about how a meal you had at some restaurant was awesome. We post on FB our friends dancing, laughing, smiling and so on – but when was the last time you posted a pic from the office of a colleague…hmmm.

I don’t know if social media between professional and personal will converge completely for gen Y / gen X / baby boomers. I think the millenials will get it more. But we may need one more generation before work and play via technology completely merge and can’t be distinguished.

The trend may be  similar to how smartphones are perceived by teenagers. Every phone they have ever owned has texting, a camera, and the ability to facebook. I remember using a a car phone in the Cutlass Ciera wagon back in 93 and people rocking the Gordon Gecco phone in airports.

As you use these social networking tools to communicate – either as a recruiter or a candidate finding a job – realize that there is a difference between personal and professional communication strategies. If you find poeple on Twitter that does not mean their better, and finding a job on Twitter does not mean its weird. Assess people and jobs as you have in the past – we are still learning to communicate using these tools.

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