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Many of us use Facebook today to keep in touch with friends and colleagues, but for those of us in need of a job, this powerful mechanism can also provide tremendous job prospecting power.  The best place to start is by creating your Facebook profile if you haven’t already.  Then, create a Facebook group (called something similar to “PR Professional John Smith”) and send out an invite to all of the business contacts, friends, and so forth you have that are in the field you are pursuing – and ask your friends to make the same invitation to people they know.

Your group can become an interactive, dynamic, online resume and portfolio that gives you the ability to constantly stay in front of all of your industry-specific contacts by offering useful information and at the same time demonstrating your adeptness in your chosen field.  Let’s say you are able to get your group up to 40 members (consisting of past colleagues, associates and business contacts).  On a frequent basis (let’s say every three to five days), send out a link to an interesting article you found on the web that speaks to some topic relevant to the industry.  In line with this same time frame, draft a quick 200-word article yourself that demonstrates your knowledge and skill set in the given field.

By frequently submitting short articles, links to other articles and so forth, you can easily and non-intrusively stay in front of all of your key contacts.  This way, when a job opportunity does surface, you will be top of mind to them and hopefully will get that call you’ve been waiting for.

A big battle in the job hunting game is generating a network of individuals that have the potential to help you land that new career.  With your Facebook group, you are taking the utility of this networking group to the next level and leveraging it in a manner that can greatly help you stay in front of these contacts without having to pick up the phone and bother them just to stay top of mind.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 10:06 am and is filed under General, Internet, LinkedIn, Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.