With the Internet changing the way we search for jobs – and the way recruiters and hiring manager search for potential employees – comes the ability to search for a new job using some of the existing technologies you’re already using.

Twitter is a great example of a technology that can be used to find a new job and at a minimum to network and meet people (virtually meet them anyways) who might be able to positively influence your job search and ultimately your career.

I recently read a newspaper article that gave examples of people who had found new jobs using Twitter. In one case, the person had followed a Twitter feed that advertised local jobs and saw a tweet that referenced a job that interested him. He applied for it and got the job.

In another instance, it was a case of someone who had been followed by another person on Twitter who ended up interviewing them for a job after following them for awhile, learning about them, and being impressed enough by what they saw to ask if they’d be interested to interview for a new job.

It goes to show you that technology like this can be used for your advantage in a career setting. It also goes to show you the importance of keeping your profile – in this case your tweets – professional.

As an aside, I also know of recruiters who in some cases either use LinkedIn exclusively or almost exclusively to search for job candidates to fill their jobs which is another great way to get noticed online by people you don’t currently know. The same might be said for actual hiring managers who use LinkedIn to find staff for their company.

Hiding behind email is something that is fairly easy to do and is something I have to watch out myself as I’m prone to doing it from time to time.

Sending an email rather than picking up the phone and calling someone or seeing them in person is an easy way to get a message out…but whether or not the person receiving the email – assuming the email got delivered to their In box and not their Deleted folder – is another question.

As a recruiter, I know it’s easy to send an email rather than picking up the phone and calling someone but again, it’s so easy to send an email and just as easy to ignore it. Plus you’re basically putting your fate in their hands as you wait for them (to hopefully) respond quickly.

Just as we spoke about yesterday regarding how working for someone puts your fate in the hands of others, so does hiding behind email when you know in your heart and head that picking up the phone or seeing someone in person will possibly get you closer to what you’re looking for.

I read an article today about how many young people are temporarily shutting off access to their social media – access to their Facebook and MySpace profiles for example – when they start looking for a job so that potential hiring managers don’t find something about that person that perhaps puts the person in a bad light.

At first glance it seems like a good idea, limiting access to information that they have willingly put online about themselves so as to not get themselves into trouble.

At a second glance though, it makes you wonder why they’d bother putting stuff in the public domain in the first place if they felt it was going to cost them a job or make them look bad in a professional manner?

These days it isn’t hard to post stuff on the Net that you might later regret. Sometimes it’s more difficult to completely erase it with the snap of a finger though so it’s best to consider this before posting anything.

The Internet provides a false sense of security to job searchers as it allows us to think we’re accomplishing something by hiding behind our keyboard and firing off resumes, tweets, Facebook friend requests and using other online tools ad nauseum…and making us feel like we’ve accomplished something.

Firing off dozens of resumes to hiring managers in response to jobs they’ve advertised on major job boards is great…until you realize that it’s just as easy for hundreds or thousands of other people to the same thing!

Tweeting and adding people as friends and thinking that this qualifies as networking is great too…until you realize that of the hundreds or thousands of people you follow and are friends with, you really only pay attention to a small handful of them. How many of those people are ignoring you too?

The easiest way to get in touch with someone and make an impression is in person. In sales, you can reach many more people by calling them on the phone or emailing them but meeting them in person often results in much better results. Having that face to face contact just adds something that a phone call or email can’t.

What do you think is better? Emailing 100 resumes to 100 nameless, faceless email addresses or meeting 10 hiring manager in person?

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then this certainly applies to the job search process too. Doing the same thing over and over again and padding your Internet stats with more friends and followers is great, but if it’s not getting you closer to a better job or career, what’s the point?

Networking is what many people tell you to do to help your career and find a new job. Exactly what “networking” means to different people though is another question…

Also, giving versus taking is often a big issue with networking. Specifically, if you’re doing all taking and no giving, it tends not to result in positive results.

Twitter is a popular method of networking that people commonly use these days. Or at least it give people the impression that they’re networking. I get Twitter confirmations to let me know that someone is following me and when I check the person’s profile, I see that they have something like 5,000 followers and they are also in turn following 5,000 people.

So do you think that this person actually has 5,000 active followers who follow their tweets – and that they in return actively follow 5,000 people – or that it’s more a case where people simply follow each other, pad their results and don’t really accomplish much?

In other words, is it simply a quid pro quo of “I’ll follow you if you follow me” or is it something more than that?

People can certainly “”meet” others through Twitter but it’s questionable how many if not most people actually use it positively. I’ve had plenty of cases where someone follows me, I don’t bother following them, and two days later they’re no longer following me.

It does bring up a bigger thought related to networking though. When you’re networking, people expect to get something in return and when you don’t give it to them, they’re likely to avoid you or stop dealing with you.

People decide to follow me on Twitter and when I don’t bother following them back, they decide to unfriend me and delete me. In most cases, I couldn’t care less because I tend not to follow people who don’t at least offer something serious, useful, or related to my topic.

I’ve seen similar actions on Facebook and LinkedIn, too. Cases where I get a request from a person I haven’t seen or heard from in years but get no actual note or email. So they want to be a friend or link up with me…but don’t bother sending any email or note regarding what they are up to or anything like that.

When it comes to real, live, actual networking though, pay attention to what you offer and if you come across as simply someone who is taking and not giving.

People who do this consistently tend to have trouble successfully networking since the person on the other side of the table realizes that the only person benefiting is you.

With the prevalence of various social media websites, many people have come to rely on them to find a new job with varying results. LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other popular websites are certainly popular examples of websites that can help you broadcast your name and profile.

Plus, you can post your resume on all sorts of online job boards and try your luck at finding a job this way, too.

Of course, everyone else can do the same thing so it can quickly become a case of wondering how much time and effort should you place on these websites to help you take the next step in your career?

Looking at it another way, what percentage of your time should be spent utilizing these methods versus more traditional ways of finding a new job like applying for specific jobs, networking, knocking on doors and visiting companies, etc?

Ultimately, you’ll need to figure out yourself how to dedicate your time and efforts but if most or all of your time is spent utilizing only social media websites and strictly limiting your job search to using these methods, you’re severely limiting the odds of finding a new, better job.

Working in recruitment – as with any position that involves hiring staff or helping people find jobs – showed me just how many people often apply for one job and try to battle it out (figuratively of course) with all the other candidates for often just one available position.

It’s not uncommon for companies to receive hundreds and possibly thousands of applications for a job they have advertised through online job boards or in the old days, through newspaper ads.

For large high profile companies, it may be common for them to receive hundreds or thousands of applications to their website every day even when they don’t have jobs available.

How can you stand out from the pack when you simply become one of hundreds or thousands of other candidates?

Often, you can’t.

Jobs are still won and lost in face to face situations whether in the job interview, networking event or a chance meeting with a hiring manager who gets to know you in a formal or informal setting and decides to pursue you as a potential hire with their firm.

Getting out from behind your computer and showing people your personality is the way you stand out from the pack and remains the best way to separate yourself from other people applying for the same jobs you are.

Many times, I’ve received a resume from someone that seems too good to be true…

…then I meet the person face to face and realize that this is in fact the case. In other words, their resume made them look better than they actually were.

Conversely, I’ve also met people with a subpar resume who upon meeting them, cause me to realize that they are underselling themselves and perhaps need to do a better job of selling themselves honestly but with impact through their resume.

In other words, looks can be deceiving and again, it’s often the face to face meeting that ends up sorting this out.

But if you’re only using online methods to conduct your job search, you’re limiting not only your opportunities to find a new job but also your opportunities to show potential hiring managers your personality, skills and intangibles that often can’t be promoted through online means.

The rule of the day relates to how sarcasm should have its own font just so it’s perfectly clear that the person writing the sarcasm is actually being sarcastic.

Have you ever read an email (or a newspaper article, Internet article, magazine article, etc) and wondered if the person writing it was being serious or sarcastic?

I’ve read plenty of emails from people who I don’t yet know very well who try for some reason to make a joke and sometimes I can’t tell whether or not they’re actually joking or serious. Sarcasm only works when it’s obvious and when it’s applicable to the situation.

Sometimes it’s difficult to convey sarcasm unless you put an annoying smiley face after every incident just to make it patently obvious to readers that sarcasm was intended.

Moral of the story: Watch what you write and how you write it whether in a work setting or when applying for jobs. Sometimes people try to get a bit too cute and make a joke and might not realize that the person at the other end actually reading it might not get the joke.

Or worse, they take the comment the wrong way and you pay for it as a result.

I recently saw a news item on CNN that referred to a list of 12 things that they claimed had become obsolete. Specifically they listed 12 technologies and services that they felt we no longer need or use very frequently.

Mind you, after they showed the list on the screen, they then asked their viewers to respond and to either agree or disagree with the list so it would seem even CNN has doubts as to the validity of sounding the death knell for all of the 12 things they listed.

Of the 12 items listed, two of them struck me as being ones that job searchers probably still used and rely upon as part of job searches. One was the newspaper ad (ie. newspaper job posting) and the other was the fax machine. Let’s look at both of them from a job search and career management perspective:

Newspaper ads: I know newspaper ads haven’t disappeared because I still see them so they certainly aren’t obsolete! Certainly the companies paying to place the ads don’t think they’re obsolete otherwise presumably they wouldn’t be using them. Truth be told, newspaper ads have always had a low success rate from a job searcher’s perspective because they tend to yield hundreds of applications (or even more) from the people who see them and apply for the job being advertised. It that regard, it can also be a waste of time for the company placing the ad because then they have to sift through all these resumes! At least these days, they can receive the resumes by email…imagine what it used to be like (ie. up until the mid 1990s or so) when email wasn’t prevalent (or before that when it didn’t exist) and hiring managers had to sift through hundreds of actual PAPER-BASED resumes by hand!

Fax machine: Inclusion of the fax machine is an interesting one because strictly speaking, many people probably stopped using a fax machine years ago and plus these days, you don’t even actually need a fax machine to send a fax. You can send faxes through your email program or all-in-one printer and can eliminate the need for a physical fax machine on your desk. Sending resumes and cover letters by fax used to be the popular way (along with snail mail) to apply for jobs until the Internet came along and made it even easier and less paper-intensive.

The point is that for both the newspaper ad and fax, they still exist and job searchers and hiring managers can still utilize both to achieve their purposes ie. find a new job or hire a new person respectively.

Having said that, there are plenty of more effective ways to find a new job or hire a new staff member than using a newspaper ad and sending paperwork by email is far superior and more professional than faxing it.

These days recruiters and hiring companies all use internal databases so chances are that if you fax your resume to a recruiter or hiring manager, they’ll probably ask you to email a copy in Word format anyways.

New technology is arising and being embraced constantly. Sticking with the old technologies and not embracing new ones can not only make you look outdated compared to your competitors for jobs (if you’re a job searcher) or for great talent (if you’re a hiring manager) it can impact your ability to actually perform as efficiently as your competitors who are embracing new technologies and are constantly looking for other new ones.

Last month we talked about a few ways to stand out from the pack with regards to your job search. I gave a few examples of things that I’ve seen – as well as one thing I did earlier in my career – to get a leg up on my competitors for jobs.

It got me to thinking about some of the things that people I’ve interviewed for jobs have done that were a bit different from the norm:

1. Resume on a memory stick: I recall back in 2000 when memory sticks and other memory devices were still kind of novelties, a few people I was interviewing for jobs handed me a memory stick with their resume on it. A few years earlier, I remember a guy I knew using a mini CD-Rom to distribute his resume. At the time, I think they were kind of novel ideas but other than being novel and perhaps expensive, I’m not sure I see the point especially these days when we’re used to seeing resumed delivered electronically. Save your money and email your resume.

2. Reference letters and recommendations: Every few weeks, I interview someone who brings a folder of information with them that contains letters of recommendation, copies of their degrees, printed out emails from colleagues that congratulate them for something they did, copies of training courses they’ve taken and other stuff that makes them look good. Often it seems that the person is trying a bit too hard to look good. The most organized, professional people I’ve interviewed tend to bring a copy or two of their resume along and that’s about it. If we need supporting materials like the ones mentioned above, we’ll ask for them.

3. Personal website: These days many people are running their own website(s) and/or blog and probably belong to one or more of the popular social networks. As a recruiter, the most common thing I’ve found in this regard is getting a LinkedIn invite from job searchers that I’ve interviewed and I have no problem accepting the invite and linking back. I think it makes sense. Of course if you’re also going to mention your personal website to recruiters and/or hiring managers you just want to ensure that the material contained therein doesn’t hurt your cause, something we spoke about back on November 21.

Last month we asked the question what does your online reputation say about you?

What I didn’t mention though is the question of what you can do when you find out through a Google search that this is information out there that hurts you and your reputation?

If the information is something you can fix – like those drunk photos of you we talked about back on November 11 obviously you can fix that yourself.

But what if you have built an online reputation that you’d prefer wasn’t so readily available to a potential hiring manager through a Google search?

Maybe you have religious or political beliefs that you’ve discussed online, perhaps chat rooms or forums refer to you in unflattering terms, stuff like that.

How can you combat things like this?

For starters you can ensure that the profiles you have created on the Internet and can control – like your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles if applicable – are professional and worthy of being seen by a potential hiring manager. I’d say the LinkedIn one (and ones like it) are more important since anyone can do a quick search and view your basic profile whereas with Facebook at least you can limit the people who can view your profile. Plus LinkedIn is a professional networking tool that many hiring managers might automatically check. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, it could be a good idea to create a professional one since quite often it will help to produce a highly ranked search engine result when typing in your name.

Secondly, you can change the way your name is shown in your resume. If your name is Mike Smith and Googling your name yields the negative results, on your resume you could try showing your name as Michael A. Smith (or whatever your middle initial is) or Michael Anthony Smith. In other words, you spell your name out in whole in a different form than what appears on the Net. People tend to use the spelling of your name as you shown it and may even copy and paste it directly into the search engine. If you utilize this method, make sure your online profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) use your full name, too.

Keep an eye out for anything you submit online when you use your full name (which you shouldn’t do anyways). If you’re posting comments to chat rooms or forums using your real name, it could come back to haunt you.