Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter for job hunters: Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 3.0

by Paul Brent, ctvottawa.ca

With millions of people on social networking sites like Facebook, the ways those sites are being used is growing and changing.

If you use them to help you find a job, you're part of the new generation of job hunters who are using these websites to open new opportunities.

Greg Quirk of Ottawa found a job after several months of looking. He tried the conventional ways, then he joined up with Gatineau author David Perry.

Perry is a veteran recruiter, veteran author and speaker about how to find a job, using some very bold tactics.

His latest book was just released this week, an update called Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters Version 3.0.

He makes the claim that using the web has become crucial, and job hunters have to be there because that's where employers are looking.

"If I can't find you, you don't exist, period," Perry said. "How does an employer look for new talent? They go to Facebook and Info Zoom; it's cost effective and efficient."

Quirk used YouTube postings to showcase his skills, wrote a daily blog, plus took a traditional three or four page resume and boiled it down to one page with colour graphics and aggressive wording on his abilities.

"When I used the older style in six or seven months I got two or three interviews, but when I used the guerrilla version and some other tactics I got more than a dozen interviews in two or three months," Quirk said. "I got a job and my new employer said he was really impressed by my blog about job hunting."

Career coach Michelle J. Iseman also works with a volunteer group in Kanata that helps unemployed tech workers. She said the book nails the new reality.

"Job hunters need to put out a profile on-line that says to employers, 'You have a problem and I am your solution and I am better and more cost effective than everyone else,'" she said. "You need to market yourself and David's book talks about that."

Both Perry and Iseman said they're surprised how few people look at the web as a way to market yourself and search for a job.

"99 per cent of people at speaking events don't think of it that way, until it's explained why they need to be online," Perry said.

He points to sites like about.me, twittergrader.com, branchout.com, zoominfo.com and Linkedin - the primary spot to put up a solid profile.

"LinkedIn is your first interview, you are not there in-person but that is where employers look," he said. "If you are not there, you don't get the call, if you don't get the call you don't get the job and you will be waiting a long time to get a job."

"You just need to take some time to slow down and look at what you can do," Perry said. "It's not hard at all to do this."

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