R. Ethan Smith

HOW TO: Get a Job Without Social Media

I had a real cool Mashable-style 10-step guide written up.  It turned out to be quite wordy, and 1500 words is rarely an effective way to communicate a simple concept.  Anyway, here it is and thank you for reading.

Know people.
Having a lot of friends (the kind that you see in person on a frequent basis) is a good thing.  For the Gen Y-ish crowd, professors and the like are also good people to know.  If your friends and profs know you do excellent work (see below), they are likely to keep you in mind when opportunities arise.  When it comes to employment the altruistic nature of humankind kicks into high gear.

Let the excellence of your work speak for itself.
Social media is the reincarnation of Narcissus.   If you are excellent at something, show people - and then let them tell you that you are good.  Wasting your life staring at your pretty avatar trying to prove your expertise every 5 minutes in 140 characters or less will get old for you, and is already blasé to your 619 followers.

That’s about it.  Thanks to a helpful little network of friends and profs and a portfolio of work that is well-like by said parties has resulted in at least 5 job opportunities to pursue as I get ready graduate in May.

Maybe social media can do everything, but maybe it’s time to start believing you can do everything too.  Work hard, and find friends and personal connections that can help you instead of waiting to be found by a bored HR rep’s Twitter keyword search.  See what happens.

Thank you for reading, if you made it this far.  I have enabled photo replies on this post.  If you feel like being amusing, now is your chance.