By Hannah Morgan

Facebook may not be the first place you think to go for help with your job search. But using the right status updates could help you land your next job.

Think, for a minute, about all the people you are connected to on Facebook. Friends, family, classmates and other acquaintances. Any of them could potentially know about a job you might be suited for, if they knew you were looking.

Why Facebook?

People spend more time on Facebook than any other social media platform. And Facebook recently announced the rollout of a job board. These are two pretty strong reasons to consider spiffing up your Facebook profile and activity.

Educate Your Facebook Connections

Many of your Facebook friends may not know what you do for work and your goal is to change this. You want to develop a campaign on Facebook to educate your friends on who you are professionally and stay top-of-mind in case someone knows of an opportunity you may be a fit for.

To achieve these results, you’ll need to do a little planning and consistently fill your status updates with information that relates to your professional goals. 

By Chris Russell

Someone referred by a current employee is the person most employers prefer to hire. Known as an "employee referral" these candidates typically become very good employees, known as a “good hire” in the recruiting world.

Best for the employee is that they usually receive compensation, sometimes in the thousands of dollars, if a person they refer is hired and stays in the job, working successfully for at least 3 to 6 months.

Even if you don't end up with a referral as the result of your contact, you may learn "insider information" about specific employers and jobs as a result of reaching out to insiders for something that may be an informational interview.

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