LinkedIn is the leading social networking site for professionals. There is so much you can do on LinkedIn, and while it is not the only effective tool available to you in your career search, it really deserves some of your time, attention and investment. To make people more accessible you may want to consider investing €50 per month for an upgraded account. This will give you more ways to reach or be reached by the right people on Linkedin

FIVE WAYS TO USE http://www.linkedin.com FOR JOB SEARCHING
1. Profile
Whether you have just created your profile or already have one, make sure to follow the suggested steps to complete your profile up to the 100% level.  Make sure to fill in as much professional, academic and skill-based information – make it similar to your CV! This will optimize your profile in LinkedIn as recruiters do word searches similar to Google

Completing your profile 100% will require getting 3 recommendations. Ask for brief recommendations from as many managers, peers, subordinates etc as possible. Offer to write one for them in return.Update your status weekly to post your availability and career goals

2. Groups
Click on Groups link and search for LinkedIn groups related to your company, or career-related interests and request to join. Remember who you are targeting EG A systems administator maybe targetting recruiters & IT Managers, so join Groups where you can gain access to those individuals. While quantity is not as important as quality, groups with more members allow for more potential contacts ( 2nd degree of seperation )

Check to see what the group discussion and board guidelines are, and if permitted, create a post introducing yourself & your career ojectives.  Network with group members by offering insights and answers to questions in the discussion board and posting questions or discussion topics yourself.

3. People
With an increasing network of connections and fellow group members, search for current employees of your preferred companies and if possible, message them. Be discrete in your introduction and request to connect. Make you introduction a warm one and refer to your mutal contact.

4. Jobs
LinkedIn is a great place to search for job.. It is relatively new to Irish Employers, but it is becoming a tool that more and more employers are using – especially the multinationals. It’s a job board is similar to others. Recommendations really can make a difference, for after you apply, employers and recruiters can instantly refer to your recommendations as complimentary support to your application.

5. Companies
You can search companies by industry category and location and identify companies that you may not have previously considered, especially small-medium sized businesses. By doing advanced searches your job search can become more targetted. LinkedIn shows whether the companies in your search results have posted job opportunities. Visit the companies and their websites and check for their job opportunities or application processes. Eitherway, jobseekers should send in speculative applications to the relevent individuals so your details are available when vacancies do come up.

Use company profiles to identify new people, especially the hiring managers or HR decision makers.  In summary,following these steps will make you more marketable, provides you with access to employers and helps you keep abreast of the latest developments through discussion boards. The more time you invest into it, the more you get out of it

Mairead Griffin, Career Coach & Outplacement Specialist http://www.careermentors.ie

CV Service – Interview Skills Training – Career Direction – Job Searching online & offline

Averages
Average User Figures Average user has 130 friends on the site
Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
Average user becomes a fan of 2 Pages each month
Average user is invited to 3 events per month
Average user is a member of 12 groups

http://www.careermentors.ie  Mairead Griffin, Career Coach & Outplacement Specialist

Read on for more stats…..

International Growth
More than 70 translations available on the site
About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application

Platform
More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
More than 350,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users
More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008
More than 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites every month
Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have implemented Facebook Connect

Mobile
There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
There are more than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

Read More……

Job market updates & announcements
Career change
Drafting impactful CVs
Recruiting from a Internal HR perspective
Maximising the use of recruitment consultancies
Online & offline job searching
Upskilling, training & education
Latest recruiting technologies
Redundancies and entitlements
Social media for job searching
Networking – online, offline, events etc
Latest recruiting technologies
Job market challenges & more……..

The Group Owner, Mairead Griffin, a leading Career Coach and Outplacement Consultant from ‘Career Mentors’ ( http://www.careermentors.ie ) will offer practical, neutral, honest and ‘up to date’ career advice to members. The Group aims to engage, unite and support HR, Business Management, Career Consultants, Jobseekers and Recruiters, so all stakeholders in the recruitment cycle can benefit from each others insights.

Id like to invite you all to join and perhaps suggest membership to any of your connections who are actively seeking employment. You can “share” a Group with your connections using the”share group” link on the top left of the Groups main page!!
Mairead Griffin FCIPD
Career Coach & Outplacement Consultant
http://www.careermentors.ie

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2430760&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

Facebook  - Some good news for Dublin!!

Mary Coughlan, Taniste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment officially opened the EMEA HQ of Facebook based out of Dublin. Facebook currently employs 70 staff with the expectation that this will double as the operation continues to expand into Europe

Facebook’s HQ has been in operation a year in Dublin. With the expectation that it will double in size, there is finally some good news out there for jobseekers. Key roles that Facebook will be hiring include User Operations, Online Operations, Advertising Sales, Advert Campaign Delivery, Finance & Engineering.

All facebook jobs in Ireland can be found at http://www.facebook.com/jobs

The unofficial Facebook group, “DSGi Employees”, which says it is for people who work or have worked for the company, has around 3,000 members.

Posts referred to customers as stupid, and recounted unflattering shopfloor conversations. Many of the comments had been left by staff using their real names, the BBC reported.

DSGi said: “We have clear guidelines for staff and will investigate any alleged abuse of customers.

“We are very disappointed that a small number of our colleagues have made these comments. We will take the necessary action with any staff found to be acting inappropriately.”

Earlier this month, Portsmouth City Council outlawed Facebook for its 4,500 staff after it discovered that they had spent 572 hours – the equivalent of 71 working days – on the site in just four weeks

To Read More Click On the Link Below

http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/09/08/52048/dixons-staff-insult-customers-on-facebook.html
www.careermentors.ie

Mairead Griffin

Use http://www.becomed.com to keep track of where your CV is going!

Nowadays jobseekers are applying to multiple jobs through many different mediums. As a result, they can lose track of what roles they have applied to and where recruitment agencies are sending their CVs.

Why manage your job applications?

- It will cause problems with the agencies if companies already have your CV on file and it is also submitted through an agency. It will damage your relationship with your consultant and reflect poorly on your with the organisation

- It helps you track the progress of your job searching process. What medium is creating the most responses to your CV? Do you need to re-channel your efforts in another direction?–

- You need to be prepared for interviews that may arise. The job spec may have been removed from the web by the time interviews progress.

Try http://www.becomed.com to manage your job applications. It will add time to the process, but it will give you a sense of achievement

Mairead

WHAT IS LINKEDIN?

Linkedin.com is a online worldwide network of experienced professionals with 42 million users across 200 countries.

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SOME STATS….

141,000 Users in Ireland ( Mainly Qualified Professionals), 42 million Worldwide

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IRISH USERS

16,054 – IT, Telecoms & IT Services
21,376 – Banking & Finance
1,219 – Staffing & Recruitment
6,997 – Engineering
1,671 – Marketing / Advertising
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WHO USES IT?
Professionals, Executives, Jobseekers, Headhunters & Recruiters, HR + copmanies such as EBAY and Microsoft
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WHY USE IT?

- Potential Employers search against relevent skillsets
- You can be accessed by 1,219 Recruiters in Ireland
- 1600 companies have “company profiles” on Linkedin in Ireland
- Expand your network using your current network
- Send updates to your network eg. Project work, jobs, Advice
- Reconnect with ex-colleagues
- Accessible to consultants who may need Associate Consultants to support them in   Projects
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The more effort you put into Linkedin, the more you will get out of it. Below are some tips on how to get yourself noticed to potential employers

1. Use critical key words from your field and profession in your profile. Your profile should read like your CV

2. Customize your URL to use your name.

3. Update your profile regularly – this keeps you visible to your network.

4. Use a photo. Linked In is a NETWORKING tool, so use it that way.

5. Make and seek recommendations.

6. Add applications to create a more interesting profile.

7. Display appropriate work product or work samples (see adding applications).

8. Adjust your privacy settings so people can see you entire profile and NAME when you view other people’s profiles.

9. Join groups and participate in discussions.

10. Ask and answer questions.

Increasingly, as job searching in Ireland evolves , more and more recruiters ( internal and recruitment consultancies ) are using online professional networking sites such as linkedin to source new talent. In my opinion, the more you put into Linked In, the more you will get out of it. It takes time and tenacity when job searching, but I would highly recommend it as a tool for job searching and identifying outplacement consultants