Organizing a Web 2.0 job Search

Martin Burns, over at the good to know blog, gave a great example of using social media to connect a candidate with a job opportunity.

He describes seeing a random person add him on twitter, and through several social networking connections (LinkedIn, Facebook), seeing that the random person might be a match for their job openings, leading to a conversation.

All that sounds fine, and easily managed. But what happens when that all takes time, or we as candidates are pursuing multiple job opportunities, or there are multiple connections? How do we organize and track our search then?

The truth is that almost any organization system will work well for the simple cases, the cases where the interactions happen one on another, or you only have a few leads to track. In those cases, your memory will provide the context for each step in your search.

But, the more opportunities you can effectively pursue, the faster you will find a job. And the more diligent you are about following up, the better the job that you find. What that means is if you have an organization system that tracks everything for you, you can pursue more opportunities.

So, the ideal system should give you immediate access to everything you know about a person, activity, company, or job opportunity. You shouldn’t wonder whether you’re seeing everything important – it all should be there automatically provided for whatever you are working on. And it should provide the information in context, to give you the full picture so that you can rely on it when you are preparing for a call or writing an email.

Here’s the plug: PerfectJob Online is free right now. Check it out, and especially check out how you can link People, Companies, Jobs, Documents, and Activities into a full picture of each opportunity.