I Am Empowered - I am the National Urban League

This rapidly expanding frontier should NOT be overlooked—for example, social profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook are now being used to create career specific profiles on sites like Branchout, Job Magic, Jobvite and Find.ly. Make sure you have a well-written personal profile, coupled with a large network of contacts—it could lead you to your next job.

• LinkedIn has become an essential tool allowing you to create a profile highlighting your professional background & experience which, in turn, links to a network of your contacts. Once established, your network grows exponentially through the networking lists of others.
• Facebook allows for personal profiles as well as, company pages for corporations seeking new employees—now, Facebook’s Marketplace has a Jobs section, where job seekers can search for jobs directly by location, keyword, job title, industry and so forth.
• Monster’s Facebook app “BeKnown” provides an easy way for job seekers to search for jobs and network on career specific topics with others in your network.
• Twitter lets you network with others by sending a short text message which can include information about your job search.

Your Online Identity

Before employers make an offer to a potential employee they often do an inter- net search to see what turns up about YOU. If you have something other than a 100% professional LinkedIn or Facebook page, create a new one just for job searching and set the privacy settings to your other
pages . . . in other words, inappropriate personal online content about you could stand in the way of a job offer.

Don’t rely solely on the internet—

Use it as part of your traditional job search. Remember—no matter how internet savvy you are, or become, your interpersonal skills need to be just as polished.

Click here to download the Black Enterprise Social Media Bootcamp presentation.

To download the full National Urban League Employment Guide, click here.