Clever use of free marketing: Using social media in your job hunt.

A fellow lbobian and frequent contributor, Michael Cardwell set up a website and a twitter account for the sole purpose of getting a job. I think this is a very clever use of adding social media as another layer in a job search.

I asked Michael to explain his rational and here is what he wrote:

"I started www.MichaelneedsaJob.com and @HireMichael because I wanted to try something different, I wanted to at least leave an impact with people that I was job searching. I had tried for entirely too long the traditional way, through job searching sites, recruiting firms, and was receiving very poor results.

Everyone has heard to "think outside the box" but no one can ever provide a solid example. How do you let companies know that they should hire you, when you can hardly find a way to submit your resume to their maze of a website. I'm fairly certain that the HR e-mails that you see on their go straight to a pit of alligators and are never seen again.

I was wanting to raise awareness and crowd source my job hunt, I can only search and apply for so many jobs in a day, but by letting all of my friends and social network that I was actively looking, I would be able to get them finding leads for me, and higher quality leads at that. Since the site went up a few weeks ago, I've gotten 3 separate high quality leads from friends or acquaintances on Twitter that have led to one interview so far.

Hopefully I'll be able to get someone's attention somewhere, while I'm able to provide some entertainment for the rest of you. And I've heard CBS has been developing a few other twitter accounts into TV shows, so that's my back up plan."


Any advice or comments for Michael?



lbobi Human Resources,
Jeff