What’s the 411 and what do I do with it?

By Sharon Fleshman

Lately, I’ve been amazed at how much information is at our immediate disposal these days. Recent innovations have opened up more sources than ever before…. text messages, blogs, RSS feeds, LinkedIn or Facebook updates, tweets, wikis … the possibilities are endless. The temptation with such a flow is to either become overwhelmed or get distracted. I must confess that I’ve been guilty of both. For this reason, I encourage you to come up with a system to make the most of social media and other online resources that can facilitate your networking, job search or career development goals without monopolizing your time. Perhaps you’ll decide to spend 15 minutes a day on your Twitter account, sorting through tweets to see what’s most relevant to you. Maybe you will touch base with one contact from a LinkedIn alumni group per month to build your network.

Over the past year, our office has made quite a bit of progress in terms of leveraging social media as a means of receiving and sharing career-related information. Check out the following resources to learn more.

Creating an Online Persona-A good primer to get you started or help you manage the online presence you already have.

Penn Career Services Social Media page-A good starting place for finding resources from Career Services on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Webinars for Jobseekers-Webinars with a special focus on using LinkedIn for your job search.

Author: Sharon

Sharon Fleshman is the Senior Associate Director of Career Services for students in Education, Nursing and Social Policy & Practice.