Job seekers and HR managers are getting into social media tools. In bad economy, visibility matters and social network tools like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut etc provide network access.

Twitter is a latest kid on the block and it’s short SMS like text messaging has made many fans (We are also on Twitter if you want to follow us there – CodeMunch ). Lately Twitter is getting popular for job seekers to reach out to prospective employers. Wall Street Journal writes about this new development, which is getting good attention in worsening job market:

Looking for a new job, Alexa Scordato didn’t email or call her contacts about possible openings. Instead, she messaged them via the social-networking Web site Twitter.com.

Her brief message: “Hey there! Looking for a Social Media job up in Boston. Are you guys doing any entry level hires?”

Within a week, she had an interview. Within two weeks, she had a job.

The site, which lets users publish supershort updates of what they’re doing, is a virtual meeting ground where a range of communities — from moms to media professionals — come to converse informally.

It’s been criticized as a site for sharing mundane details about everyday activities. But people like 22-year-old Ms. Scordato, who used Twitter to privately message some people she’d met at a conference, show the site can be more than that.

“I would guess that if I had just sent them a long email with my résumé, I might not have gotten a response as fast as I did,” says Ms. Scordato, who was hired by Mzinga, a Boston-area company that helps businesses use social technology.

Clearly diversifying your social network presence in leading social networks helps in building personal brand. Focused effort in establishing expertise goes a long way in getting into good books of people you want to impress.

Follow us on codemunch. We will be looking at Twitter APIs and thinking how we can help our job seekers in their career planning.

For  graduates just coming out of colleges and finding themselves challenged due to dire economy, there is plenty of food for thought here:

Barack Obama never escaped from Corporate America. But he has made many courageous and non-traditional career choices — all of which helped guide him to the White House.  He graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School and took a job as a community organizer. “Community organizer” was certainly not the most lucrative or prestigious choice to make (just ask Sarah Palin). Obama could have easily opted for a more traditional path and accepted a position at a law firm or as a corporate attorney. I’m sure many wise people advised him that he would never make any money as a community organizer.

But Obama followed his principles and his passions. They led him to the Illinois Senate, and then to the U.S. Senate (after an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives). And now, he’s preparing to move his family and new puppy into the White House. Oh yeah, and  along the way, he also became a bestselling author (so much for those predictions that he’d never make any money).

So what is Obama’s lesson for career changers? Don’t let anybody tell you that your dream is impossible or unrealistic. Your goal may very well be a long shot, but that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve it. It may take a lot of hard work and some temporary sacrifices and discomfort, but so what? Nothing worth achieving is easy.

Now step back and think. Be unrealistic. Hard work and sacrifices.

With IT companies setting up operation in small cities and town, student from colleges and  universities there are being increasingly getting recruited in these companies. “We do not go by reputation or location of a college university. Recently we conducted a campus interview in a place far from Coimbatore and selected about 250 candidates. We recruit candidate as per their qualification. It may be from far off place or close by.. we want the right person for the right job,”Perot Systems CFO Ch Srinivas Rao said. Lakshmi Naryanan, vice chairman of Cognizant Technologies Solution  said,”Many IT companies prefer recruiting candidates from all over the country and did not go by the repution of college. They only look for well qualified persons.”

The first batch of 30,000 under graduate student from 100 colleges affiliated to the University of Pune will start training courses for the ITeS sector. These college are located in the three districts of Pune, Nashik and Ahmednagar. Global talent track a start up founded by Uma Ganesh and Ganesh Natrajan, currently Nasscom chairman and vice chairman of Zensar Technologies, has signed a five year agreement with Pune University for the delivery of the courses. The Rs 6 crore project is supported by Cisco both financially, technically as well as by the University which will offer the premises for the training as well as its infrastructure, in the form of connectivity and faculty.

Pune has emerged as the leading employment provider destination in various tier-II cities in the country, followed by Lucknow and Pondicherry, points out an Assocham study on job opportunities.

Pune, with a share of 16.5 per cent, is the number one job provider while Lucknow and Puducherry accounted for 12.30 per cent and 10.50 per cent respectively, out of the total jobs tracked by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) in the last quarter of fiscal 2007-08.

Titled as ‘Tier II and III Cities New Employment Centre’, the study highlights Pune’s top five employment generating sectors comprising IT, ITeS, Banking, Education, and Automobile.

The top five sectors in Lucknow which have created vast employment opportunities in the period under reference include Education, Banking, FMCG, Insurance, and ITeS.

In case of Puducherry, these are Aviation, Banking, Energy, FMCG and Hospitality, the study says.

Among tier-III cities, Ranchi has emerged as the top employment provider with a share of 13.80 per cent. Manglore and Mysore were ranked second and third, constituting 11.60 per cent and 11.08 per cent of the total vacancies offered, the study, released by ASSOCHAM Secretary General D S Rawant says.

To make sure you look good when company or recruiter runs into your Facebook profile, we have rolled out MY RESUME. My Resume is an application developed by CodeMunch team for Facebook platform.

CodeMunch is a Web 2.0 Social Resume Builder. Where you can get your resume on your profile by just filling some relevant information. By using this application you can send your resume to any of your friends. Sharing and adding review to your friend’s resume is just one click away.

My Resume will play a very important role in your life and resume building. Your all Facebook friends can see your resume and they can forward your resume for suitable position. Build your social resume on Facebook, It will build your career.

We all look for such a job but it is very difficult to get such job, not because they don’t exist but because we are not able to find it. Positions given on job boards, papers may not be what you are looking for. Enter social media. You must be using social media since long for making new friends, finding old colleagues and other purpose, but have you tried to use it for making friend. Social media has a huge potential and realizing this employers are moving now to social media to find right candidate. In order to make social media work for you it is essential that you make your resume social.

With social resume you can make employer see your resume and contact you freely. You can also add your resume on social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut with our application CodeMunch and can make this platform work for you. To create social resume just create your profile (which is very easy and hardly takes 5 minute). Now you can see profile of all members, can contact them, get your resume rated and rate others resume. One most important thing is your participation on forums. The more you participate, stronger your identity is. Also you can be easily discovered because of active participation. Add this resume on your Facebook and Orkut profile and start getting your dream job opportunities from your personal network and jobs forums on facebook and orkut.

Good positions are unadvertised – you need to be in the known.

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Our engineers have come up with Orkut-CodeMunch application and solved this problem. With this application, you can edit, update and showcase your resume in Orkut profile. The most amazing thing is that you can share your resume with friends, fellow geeks and potential recruiters from Orkut. It provides an efficient and effective way to promote resume on Orkut and grab most of the opportunities floating around.

Traditional ways of promoting resume are now passé, add CodeMunch application on Orkut profile and join the new wave of promoting social resume.

Vikash asked this question if Web2.0 social media resume is good for seeking employment and answer for this question is viewed by most of the Codemunchers as Web2.0 resume is a frequently used term these days; but don’t know if it helps in seeking job.

Shruti gave a excellent reply to this question emphasizing on updating and sharing resume, promoting resume by adding badges and unique URL on your social profiles. She made it clear that job opportunity may knock anytime and in her own words ” Who knows a new job may be hanging around nearby “.

According to me, Web2.0 social media resume is really helpful for seeking employment as many employers are looking for potential candidates through social media. One can easily find recruiters on Orkut or Facebook and contact them directly for any job opportunity. Also showcasing resume on your social profile increases the chances of getting the resume viewed. It allows recruiter to know your Internet presence and credibility. This is also one of those reasons why hiring managers are preferring social media resume.

Create a good social media resume and promote it effectively using your social network, so that you don’t miss any opportunity hanging around.

“Make your personal brand work for you !”