Adding Career Networking to Your Social Networks
After learning about what my friends think of the Celtics, the thing that gets me most excited about social networks is how they can be used to help us make decisions. What Simply Hired has done to integrate Facebook friends and your LinkedIn connections into its job search engine is a great example of how social networks can be a valuable and productive tool.
This new feature allows users to connect their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to the search engine so you can search for positions at the companies where your friends work. Then you can review the openings and see who in your LinkedIn network knows people inside the organization. If you find an interesting position, click on your Facebook friend’s picture to send them a direct message within Facebook. Everything is private and nothing shows up on anyone’s wall or news feed.
Since the Simply Hired index pulls job listings from across the web – including the job boards, company career sites, newspapers, non-profits and government sites – you can cast a very wide net to tap the connections within your networks.
Here is their introductory video:
“We want to create a job search experience that mimics offline behavior, and the most natural thing to do when looking for a job is to connect with people you know.” – chief executive Gautam Godhwani
This is how websites will work in the future. You can navigate a website to collect the information you are looking for to make a decision, but you’ll also access your social networks right there on site to tap their experiences, recommendations and personal connections. There are very few activities that rely more on personal networking and recommendations than job searching.
The benefit to recruiters? This is more incentive to build a larger network of connections with the top people in your field. The best evangelists and salespeople for your company are your employees so encourage them to do the same and you’ll have a great addition to your employee referral strategy.
