Social Media Job Hunting: Reshaping Our Future [Infographic]

Last month I wrote an article called 7 Sounds Kids Born Today Will Never Know. I have a new sound to add to that list. It’s the rushing around sound of college graduates at a job fair passing out resumes to potential employers. At the rate things are going, traditional job fairs will soon become another obsolete activity like taking pictures using flashcubes and dialing a rotary phone.

Social media has had a huge impact on job hunting and recruiting as a whole, but do you really know how much has changed? Last spring Richard wrote a 3 part series about recruiting top talent in social media, but this article is more from the employee perspective. A lot of real people are finding real jobs through social media.

Using statistics from a survey conducted by Jobvite, MBA Online created this infographic called Can Facebook Get You A Job? According to this, an astonishing 1 in 6 workers uses social media to get hired. And, it’s no surprise that Facebook is where it’s at. The information goes on to say that most people who find success doing this are “super social” on one of their social media sites. I can understand that. I mean, you can’t just get on social media and expect to get results from broadcasting that you want a job the first day you’re on there. It’s about building relationships and making contacts, just like in the offline world.

So, now I have a question to bake your noodle. As you might agree, having an advanced degree like an MBA doesn’t quite carry the same punch as it did a decade ago. Also, there are still many people who do not understand how to use social media effectively. Based on this information, if you had to choose, would you rather learn how to use social media super effectively, or get an MBA? I think social media skills should be taught in school along with math and science. If all schools had teachers like this guy, kids would be excited to learn all about it, but that’s just my opinion.