Web 2.0 Resources
From Career Resources @ Simmons
Contents |
Social Networking
Sites like MySpace and Facebook are great for keeping up with friends, but they're also helpful in the job search. In addition to the big two, there are several social networking sites tailored specifically to professional development. To make the most of these sites, spend time updating and enriching your profiles with interests, professional goals and new skills. Don't be shy about adding new friends or joining groups within your career area(s).
LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/
An online network of more than 20 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries. When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners.
Ryze: Business Networking
http://ryze.com/
Ryze helps you network to grow your business, build your career and life, find a job and make sales. Members get a free networking-oriented home page and can send messages to other members. They can also join special Networks related to their industry, interests or location. More than 1,000 organizations host Networks on Ryze to help their members interact with each other and grow their organizations.
Spoke
http://www.spoke.com/
Spoke provides online business-to-business contact information designed specifically to help individuals and organizations find people at their target accounts. Spoke's business directory and detailed contact information allows users to identify prospects, conduct company research and access the right people at all levels of an organization.
Secrets of the Job Hunt
http://secretsofthejobhunt.ning.com/
A social network for job seekers & career advice professionals. Members can post to their blog, participate in groups and forums, and message each other.
Social Bookmarking
A good way to organize the vast array of online job search information is through social bookmarking sites, such as the popular favorites listed below. Each link you bookmark can be tagged with several categories that you define, helping you keep track of useful information. For instance, you can bookmark websites of companies or organizations within your career field as you come across them, and tag them with categories such as "jobs" or "companies," making them easily accessible for future reference.
These sites also allow you to view the links other users have bookmarked. So, if you've tagged a site as "jobhunt," you can see all of the other links users have applied this tag to. This is a great way to discover new resources you might never have know of otherwise!
Del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us/
The primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. You can also use del.icio.us to see the interesting links that your friends and other people bookmark, and share links with them in return.
Digg
http://digg.com/
Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. News stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking system.
Mixx
http://www.mixx.com/
A user-driven site that serves to help users submit or find content posted by peers, based on interest and location. Mixx users can search and discover media (including images and video) relevant to their interests, and interact with friends and other Mixx users who share their common interests.
StumbleUpon
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
StumbleUpon is a browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. As opposed to searching, when the installed "Stumble" button is clicked in a browser window, members are taken directly to web sites matching their personal interests and preferences.
Keeping Current
Keeping up with job postings and career news can be overwhelming, but RSS aggregators go a long way toward making this task easier (and possibly enjoyable!). Most sites that regularly update their content (job boards, blogs, news sites) will provide users with the option to "subscribe" to regular postings. This is done by clicking on a link that will generally say "subscribe," or "RSS," or is simply a small orange box with three curved white stripes. The technology that makes this possible is called RSS, and RSS aggregators are sites that provide you with a one-stop place to read and manage your subscriptions, such as:
Pageflakes
http://www.pageflakes.com/
Bloglines
http://www.bloglines.com/
Google Reader
http://tinyurl.com/2krh2d
My Yahoo!
http://news.yahoo.com/rss
Cultivating Expertise
There are numerous Web 2.0 resources available that might not immediately conjure up visions of job search success, but nonetheless can be harnessed toward career advancement. Blogs, wikis, and Question-and-Answer sites are great ways to both gain knowledge about a career-related topic and show off your own expertise. The following sites are helpful toward this end:
Technorati
http://technorati.com/
Technorati is a blog search engine. It's a good place to start for finding blogs on specific topics. Find a few good ones in your area of career interest, add them to your RSS aggregator, and start reading! Like any Web 2.0 media, blogs are only as good as their participants, so be sure and comment on posts that interest you. Starting your own blog is also a wonderful way to focus your interests through writing, and to network!
Wikipedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/
Wikipedia and any open-access sites that use the wiki format are great sources of user-generated information. Use them to do preliminary research on fields that interest you, but remember: don't automatically trust everything you read. Do further research, and if you spot a mistake, fix it! If one of more of your areas of expertise lacks an entry, write it! Such is the power of wikis.
Yahoo! Answers
http://answers.yahoo.com/
Q&A sites allow users to both post and answer questions. This is a good way to get feedback on queries such as "What should I wear on a job interview at a tech firm?" or "What can I do with a degree in Art History?" Not every answer will be useful (or true!), but selective use of sites like this can be enlightening. Be sure to thoughtfully and accurately answer any questions that you can.
Ask Metafilter
http://ask.metafilter.com/
Similar to Yahoo! Answers, but with a smaller, more dedicated user base.
Yelp
http://www.yelp.com/
Yelp is a site for user-generated reviews of businesses. It can be used to review any establishment in the world, but can also be focused locally (http://www.yelp.com/boston). Before applying for a job, try looking up the company or organization on Yelp, and see what others have to say about it. While not authoritative, this is a great way to get anecdotal information about a place-- if lots of users post negative reviews about working for a certain company, you might want to think twice before applying there! You can also (anonymously, if you prefer) share experiences you've had on the job that you think will be helpful for potential employees.
