I don’t know about you, but I am struggling keeping up with the networks and sites I already use. It is inevitable that there will be more to come as well. Who knows, maybe one day there will be a title given at an executive level for this kind of stuff like CSO (Chief Social Officer). God knows that businesses will eventually need one.

How do people typically find jobs? Referrals and job boards. So, if you were looking for a job, let’s say as a graphic designer, you would more than likely look first towards friends/acquaintances and then hit the streets by actively searching on Indeed.com or a niche site specific to your industry. Facebook and LinkedIn may be solid resources for the first few days until you don’t uncover any leads. Indeed.com would be a good resource, but a bit too broad and doesn’t include all industry sites related to your field. More than likely, you would spend most of your time on Dice.com searching for a graphic design job and networking on their community blog. After all, dice.com is the leading job site for tech jobs. Are job boards dead? No, not even close…

Social media sounds like it has a lot of glitz and glam from years of people saying it is, “The next big thing.” After all, there are nearly a billion people on Facebook and LinkedIn does have a huge professional base. However, has anyone really successfully landed a job by only using LinkedIn? Maybe a few people, but the majority are still using job boards dedicated to their industries when in full active mode. Are recruiters and employers really seeing a good ROI from using Social Media as a recruitment channel? Perhaps, but I am willing to say not many. I still believe that the best form of recruitment still lies in the palm of a job board’s hand or better yet, a niche community site with a dedicated user base and following. If I was recruiting in bulk or for a specialty position, that is where I would venture. Not necessarily LinkedIn – even though a lot of professionals are on it.

So is the world changing to where Social Media are the only methods of recruitment in the future? I dare say no, but I feel social is just what it is meant for…to be social with friends and family. People don’t necessarily want their social lives intermingled with their business lives. I know I don’t. Not to mention the repercussions of using LinkedIn when you are gainfully employed and don’t want your boss to realize you are searching for something else. For me, SM is a lot of hype without the ROI to prove itself as the one solution for all hiring needs. I don’t think it will ever get to that point.

Click on the link for some amazing LinkedIn Infographics found on the HubSpot Blog.

Linkedin, which has a job posting service that costs employers money, is probably gasping for air while waiting to see how this pans out. Just think of 700+ million users and the endless possibilities Facebook could/might have by integrating a job service or job portal in their network? It would be an enormous blow to the entire industry by potentially eliminating the Monsters, Career Builders, Aggregators, and just about every other facet of the job board world. However, it would make sense as the largest Social Network in the world. Why not connect business, personal, and career all in one place? It proves my theory that eventually we won’t need to search for jobs, they will find us based upon our profiles, connections, interests, hobbies, etc. If Facebook pulls this off and all goes well, this could be an entire game changer for not just the industry, but every person that uses a social network.

Per what a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable, “We’re not going to limit ourselves to what’s possible today. Instead, we’re going to devote resources to develop the innovations that are going to help the job seekers of tomorrow. We’re going to invest in research in new technologies that will deliver jobs virally at no charge and expand opportunities for people to create social job searching experiences online.”

Let’s keep our eyes and ears on this one as it could be HUGE!

Here they are from Todd’s post:

• Babelwith.me. As you send a message to someone, it translates it into another language.

• ReferenceUSA. Research information on millions of businesses in the U.S., Canada, and internationally.

• Evernote. Bookmark parts of the Web for yourself with your own little virtual sticky-notes.

• Contact Caputure from Broadlook. Find a contact on the Internet, and quickly and easily save it to your contact list.

• FriendorFollow. Previously in beta, you enter your Twitter name to see who’s following you, who’s not following you, and so on (explained briefly here). By putting in your competitor’s Twitter name, you can see the same about them. You can also export into a CSV file. Other Twitter tools include TwitterGrader, Twiangulate, Twellow, Twingly, Follower Wonk, and InboxQ. InboxQ, for example, helps you decide the best Twitter users to answer a question for you.

• fefoo. Search multiple search engines at once.

• Best Vendor. In beta, by invite only, a place to see how others are rating products and providers.

• Gist. A way to manage your contacts. Another tool in this genre is Xobni.

• Social Text and Mango Spring. Two different places to build better, social-media driven intranets.

• Meebo. A messaging tool that works with AOL, Yahoo, and other services.

• Seesmic, cotweet, MarketMeSuite, and PeopleBrowsr. Like better-known tools such as Hootsuite and TweetDeck, these help you manage your social media life, search social media, schedule posts, see where and when you’re mentioned, and more.

• DownThemAll. A plug-in to your Web browser so that you can download more quickly. OutWit Docs is one of the other browser plug-ins Myers likes.

• TinEye. One of a few sites excellent for searching for images.

• Radian6, Viralheat, Crowdbooster, and other monitoring tools. More analysis and monitoring of your social media.

• Diigo and StumbleUpon. “Social bookmarking” tools to keep track of your favorite sites and see what others like.

• “Forms” from Google Docs. A way to create an online form, such as if you want a job candidate to fill something out online.

• Know em?. See if the username you’d like to use on social media is available on different networks. Also use it to find a job candidate: their Yahoo or Gmail address, for example, may be similar to their social media handles, so if you can find them on a social site, it may help in finding their contact info.

• Focus Booster. A time-management tool to help you break down your work period into 25-minute increments, separated by breaks. Also, for people wanting to focus better, Myers suggests separating your desktop out into two different users. As an example, you’d set up one RSS feed for your celebrity gossip, and another for work. When you need a break, you look at the celeb feed, but by keeping it out of your main work feed, you don’t get distracted.

• Social Mention. Like Google Alerts, but for social social media.

• MeetingBurner. One of the newer tools for hosting online webinars.

Well, I have to say that there is a new Job Aggregator in town with a new model that is reaping the benefits. The company is www.jobs-to-careers.com and in just 10 months, have gone from 0 users to over 1.5 million since June, 2011. You can find their stats here: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/jobs-to-careers.com.

With a boasting of over 2 million jobs and projecting 3 million users in July, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know they are doing something right. So what is their method of success? Good old fashion PPC advertising. For example, go to Google and type in “Las Vegas Jobs” and you will notice they are the second sponsored ad in the top of the search. Try some other large cities and you will see the same outcome and in many instances they are #1 on the page. Taking the job search to a more PPC approach, from the aggregator’s standpoint, and you get a new light in the midst of a stagnant industry. Where most of your standard job aggregators rely mainly on SEO/SEM, these guys are pounding the search engines and watching their traffic soar!

It will be interesting to see how this new method pans out, but for right now the company is profitable and doing everything right. Don’t tell this to Simply Hired as I don’t think they have seen a profit since their inception. I do like SH’s involvement in the social space however, which will be interesting to see where that positions them over the next few years.

So, where did Jobs-to-Careers.com come from? Well, let’s just say they are utilizing the search engines for all the right reasons and their timing couldn’t be better!

If you are an employer and interested in getting your jobs indexed, try them out here: http://www.jobs-to-careers.com/include_your_jobs.html

Read the article at Forbes.com.

Check out the video below:

I never would have thought this would relate to the recruitment industry until I saw the video below:

Imagine a world where 1 million viewers are watching the news or a local broadcast and YOUR own personal ad comes up? Whether you are a recruiter searching for potential candidates or a job seeker looking for a new job/career, this could be a very useful outlet. With a limited amount of money and a creative idea, you can target your ad to the masses. Granted, not all of the viewers will visit the site you are promoting, but it is all a numbers game.

As a job seeker, imagine creating a personal branding video and targeting a particular market segment. For instance, if I were looking for a job in criminal justice perhaps I would target viewers during commercial air time after a few episodes of CSI. Or if I thought I was the next American Idol, so I aired my music video after a commercial break during or after the show itself. Imagine the attention that would draw? Being Google allows you to customize your own campaign, very similar to Ad Words, it would be a cost effective way to promote yourself in ways that were once price barriers for everyone except large corporations. Just think of how much companies pay for a 30 second slot during the Super Bowl.

From a recruiter’s standpoint, I can picture being able to target specific candidates to the types of television shows they watch. It would be hit or miss potentially on the types of candidates you receive, but for the amount you would spend on a TV campaign, would it be worth it? Imagine being a healthcare recruiter and targeting healthcare related shows like House to air your ad? Although this would be a new form of recruiting, I would think this type of method could be huge.

I am not saying to do away with our current recruitment efforts such as social media, niche job boards or other community/industry oriented sites, but this advertising medium could ad a new plateau to the playing field. After all isn’t it all about Personal Branding when it comes to promoting yourself? What a better way to get your brand in front of the masses than a medium we have been using for the last 60 years!

For the price and potential driving power, this type of advertising could make a big impact in recruiting. Not only for finding a job, but for finding the right candidate for the job as well.