Is it completely essential that an employment seeker make use of social networks in their job hunt in this day and age? No. Nevertheless, granted the economic atmosphere of the world, particularly the USA, one might say that you should give it a shot to everything available to get your resume out there and widen your network in order to reach all possible employers. It is not at all obligatory though that one use a social network to find a position, as though it be the answer to all their employment mistakes. It is as productive and unproductive as a job fair or addressing your resume to everyone you know. The only essential? to enroll in social networking sites such as LinkedIn, which sell themselves as the “hip” social networks for their specific niche market in social networking, may be to sidestep being left out by your peers for not being a member of it. But then you’re only relenting to peer-pressure and not really answering the requirements of financial or job-market constraints.
Having said that, there are plenty of merits to employing social networking sites in your employment search. To begin with, why wouldn’t you try to call attention to your resume everywhere imaginable? Why wouldn’t you attend a job-fair if it meant increasing your odds for a job even in the least? And why wouldn’t you circulate your resume to everyone you knew, in order to see who might be employing? Similarly, why wouldn’t you join a social network and use it to air your resume and advertise the fact that you are looking balloons greatly by joining such networks, and the successes speak for themselves as job hopefuls continue to credit their employment to domains concentrating in business and job finding such as LinkedIn, Facebook and other Facebook clones. And besides, even the head hunters who still run standard websites that advertise your resume are now using social network sites to connect employers to potential employees who meet their needs. If the professionals can see some use in it, then you likely should be able to as well.
