Presidential Google+ Hangout

This isn’t the first Social Media takeover from politics; last summer, Obama held a “Twitter Town Hall Meeting” that didn’t go so well since the questions were preselected.

This time, there will be a few preselected questions, but most will be directly from Google + users who were invited into the chat.  Lucky…

The chat will be live today at 5:30 est on Barack Obama’s Google+ Page

Questions this arises:

We know that Obama is going to use Social Media in an unprecedented way for this 2012 election.

If you were a Social Media Manager in the Obama camp, what sort of strategies would you use going forward into the 2012 election?

How could you better integrate Facebook?

Other Fun Questions:

Some other fun questions this made me think about:

What other President in history would you most want to meet in a Google+ hangout?

If Social Media is changing the way we “interact” with our candidates, do you feel that rightfully so, the internet should also change the way we actually participate?  By participate, I mean vote!

If you made it into the Google+ hangout tonight, what would you ask?

Using social media right can advance your career, and can launch your career, also. If you enjoy writing down your thoughts after a long day, why not start a blog? There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of blogs available on the World Wide Web. Why not make yours one of them? You can make your blog targeted towards your job search, and get hits from human resource workers that way. In addition to using a blogging tool to help your job search, there are also many great other resources at your disposal as well.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is like a job searching version of Facebook. Most LinkedIn users sign up to connect with other professionals in the field, seek out a new job for themselves, or to start searching for work. How can you maximize your LinkedIn account to get the most exposure from it?

• Add a picture – a professional one. Take some time and pick out a professional wardrobe, like you would do for an interview. Use this picture to show that you are professional. Remember, first impressions are everything, and they are what stand out to international headhunters.
• Optimize your job title. If possible, make it stand out from normal job titles. Were you a truck driver in Texas? Then say that.
• Don’t say anything on LinkedIn that you wouldn’t say at a job interview. Treat LinkedIn as if it was your job interview.

Practicing Social Media Caution on the World Wide Web: These Tricks Can Get You Hired or Fired

Whilst social media is a great way to network, it can also be a challenging one. Keeping your social media posts professional can be challenging. Experts are using websites like Facebook, Myspace, and others to narrow down the job searching field like never before. Here are a three tips to use to avoid trouble.

1. Don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t say in a job interview. If you want to complain about your boss, your bad day, or how sore your feet are, do it in a private message. Pretend your page is a public page; you never know who is watching.

2. Keep all pictures at least somewhat professional. Women: Don’t expose too much, if any, cleavage in the pictures you’ll allow online. Men: Even though it’s socially acceptable to go outside with no shirts, avoid having multiple pictures on your profile with no shirts. Employers may wonder if you’ll ever wear shirts in the office.

3. Try and be positive while posting status updates, and don’t post status updates constantly. Posting status updates constantly makes it look like you have nothing else to do, while constantly being negative can make an employer wonder just how negative you really are.

Final, parting words of advice: Be careful what you show to the world, and most importantly, the headhunters of any job.

Enter socioclean.com! A creative programmer named Priyanshu Harshavat started this site to help job seekers get their social profiles cleaned up before it got them a rejection letter. Socioclean is a program that spiders your profiles searching for over 5,000 words an phrases that are potential job killers.

Once you have given the program permission to access your account, the program issues a letter grade and a list of inappropriate content found with links to each item. You can easily run through the list quickly and eliminate those potentially offensive items that can turn off potential employers.

You may be surprised to find how much potentially negative items you have. Don’t forget that it’s not just what you have posted, but what everybody else that posts to your profile as well. Have you joined any groups that could be considered “extremist”? These small things that you have overlooked are the same things that can “jump” of the page to a prospective employer.

So if your in the job market today, don’t just get your resume in order. Take a second look at that public profile to make sure it doesn’t cost you that dream job!