Job Search with Social Media: Time Savings or Waste of Time?

networks on social media channels such as Twitter or Facebook is experienced by many as a waste of time - maybe a leisure activity, but Job Search? Certainly not. But are the traditional ones ways of finding a job more efficiently these days?

Job Search on the Web: Infidel Amazement

I always like to write about job hunting with social media or give lectures on it. And quite often the reaction is incredulous astonishment to horror: That, so that Opinions many, is far too time-consuming and cumbersome.

At a Lecture on a German University Economics students have sat in front of me with their arms crossed and said blogging for journalists for sure is a nice tool, but a complete waste of time for them. And the editor of a major German newspaper recently asked me during an interview: "Isn't that a bit like banging your chest in from behind? Eye? "

Which job search method really saves time?

The books on the subject (advertising)

And what do I say? Always the same: Of course it's time-consuming. But are traditional job search methods more efficient and beneficial? To understand that, you may have to go further. Traditional job search methods work this way: You see a job advertisement that you think would fit and compete with you in terms of skills, soft skills, and so on. At first glance, it also looks like a purposeful act.

Job hunting with social media or by recommendation marketing, on the other hand clear less goal-oriented and seems at first glance to have much more to do with luck and coincidence. You can also search for job offers on Twitter, Xing or LinkedIn, but real networking works like this: You know someone who knows someone who knows someone – and they have a job. Sounds like a lot Stress, to keep all the contacts going and the result is still terribly vague - because you never know which of the many contacts you maintain will ultimately lead to the desired result.

Job Search in Social Media: Poor planable, but works

And that's exactly where the mistake in reasoning lies: If you network properly, then you don't have to worry about something like that at all. Then things happen more or less by themselves. I experience this regularly when blogging, where people, for example via Google or via Suggestions approach me because they were looking for something specific. Or when I meet someone who asks me about a blog post they recently read - and this leads to an interesting dialogue and ultimately a good collaboration.

Of course, this is difficult to plan, even if the social media prophets and search engine optimizers would like to have you believe. Well, I can make sure that my own blog is as high as possible on Google or that I have the largest possible network. If you're looking for something exactly the next day, I can't do that to plan. It is precisely this randomness that often leads to surprising results - serendipity, in fact. And in fact, my economics students had to admit to incoming inquiries: Most jobs are assigned through contacts. Even more: Some jobs are practically created by people talking about topics and then in the Conversation ideas for new jobs - this happened, for example, at Regine Heidorn, who finds 75% of her jobs on Twitter, including jobs she never dreamed of doing. Actually also the ideal form of job search: A job that is directly related to the people and their Personality and ability - and not the other way around.

Job Search with Job Advertisements: Pseudo-planning that works badly

Discounts for your success (advertising)!

So why do people no longer dare to rely on these coincidences? Because they still believe that Companyswho advertise their positions there would have thought carefully about what they were looking for and one simply had to apply - complete. And then wonder why they get 50 rejections and more, which makes the whole application process ineffective and nerve-wracking. In fact, many companies have no idea what they are actually looking for - that's exactly why in Jobs often incomprehensible empty phrases into which one can interpret everything and nothing.

Lateral thinker and best of HR - Berufebilder.de® author Axel Haitzer shows what a job advertisement could look like with the absolutely right one Candidate be searched for: Namely the example of the Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, who was looking for 1900 men for a dangerous journey for low pay with an uncertain outcome - and also found: He is said to have received more than 4000 applications. Would Shackleton have a spongy message after today Pattern formulated, Haitzer concludes, but there would certainly have been a lot of unsuitable ones Candidates advertised - and Sir Ernest Shackleton would have time and Money wasted in recruitment or even den Success endangered during his expedition.

Modern application error vs. Networking

But unfortunately plain text is not that easy - that's what they have Best of HR – Berufebilder.de®-Authores and journalists Florian Vollmers and Anne Jacoby found out about the secret knockout criteria of HR managers while researching their job interview book: Many who are actually clearly a man or a job for a position Ms. or applicants in a particular Age are looking for (and in the end also select), do not say so in advance, let alone write it down in the job advertisement.

Reason for that, according to Vollmers that General Equal Treatment Act, which is actually supposed to protect applicants from discrimination, but in the end often ensures that only vague information is given about what exactly you are actually looking for. And if you don't belong in the right target group, you're wasting your time applying for nothing. And the company also wastes a lot of time because it first has to sort out the many unsuitable applicants.

Is it not much more sensible to build up a suitable network and then to look for exactly the right job with precisely matching contacts?

Top books on the subject

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