Facebook is more about posts than it is about profiles. Your most important message during a job search is your last post. Literally. Eye tracking studies show that most eyeballs spend the most time reading the last post on someone’s timeline.
The Facebook timeline is your venue for communicating with your network and letting people know who you are and what you’re looking for. The timeline is an amazing platform for expressing yourself, but you need to use it wisely.
Don’t be desperate
Avoid posts like, “Help! I need a job. Can you pass my résumé on?” You don’t want to come across as desperate. And you don’t want people’s help out of pity. Remember, your goal is to provide value and be upbeat.
Start conversations
Unless you’re a celebrity, posting about yourself all the time won’t get you many comments. You may have to start conversations from time to time. Ask questions, post an article and share your opinion of it, bring up something from current events — all of these ideas can kick-start a conversation with members of your network.
You can also turn other people’s posts into more interesting conversations by commenting and getting the conversation ball rolling.
Share industry-related content
At least once a week, post something related to your industry and set the privacy to Public. Sharing your opinion about professional issues can help position you as an expert.
Following are some ways to include industry-related content on your Facebook timeline:
Link to articles about your target industry.
Share your comments about a particular article. Your timeline shows your (hopefully) intelligent comment and a link to the article.
Run competitions where you can be the judge of the winner. For example, you can ask your network for the best idea to solve some industry-related problem.
Share a story from your professional life that shows you in a good light.
Post an “Ask Me” post where people can ask you questions about your industry and you answer them. For example, “Are you working in a hospital and have no idea why things are done a certain way? Ask me and I can help explain.”
Ask for introductions
Nothing’s wrong with asking your network for a little help sometimes. Because the power of your network is in who the people in it know, the best thing you can do to help yourself is to ask for introductions.
Be specific when asking for a referral. Don’t ask, “Does anyone have connections at a CPG company in marketing?” Instead, say something like, “I’m looking for work as a business analyst at a CPG company. Do you know of anyone in marketing at Purina?” You inevitably get much better results if you can say the name of the company and the exact role of the person you want to meet.
Find people to network with using Graph Search
Graph Search is a way to explore Facebook’s network of information about people. Graph Search can be found at the very top of your Facebook Profile. By using search phrases instead of keywords, you can discover all sorts of people in and outside of your current network. The feature will be rolled out to everyone by the end of 2013.
Try some of these graph search ideas to advance your own job-search networking:
People who work at [company] who live in [location]
People who work at [company] who went to [school]
Friends of my friends who work at [company]
Companies my friends like who live in [location]
Pitch your value (statement)
A great way to let people know who you are and what you’re all about is to post your value statement on your timeline every once in a while. An added bonus of posting your value statement on your timeline is that you can ask for direct feedback about it regarding what works and what doesn’t.
As long as you don’t overdo it — meaning don’t post your value statement every day — your friends will give you feedback and help you make your value statement better.
If you’re confident about posting your value statement on your Facebook timeline, you can set the privacy to Public so that Google and unconnected people can see your statement.
Journal your job-search journey
Use Facebook as a platform to share your job-seeking progress with friends and family. Let them know what steps you took that week to find work. Share interesting insights about yourself or about job seeking in general. Celebrate your successes, like having finished your résumé or getting a callback from a target hiring manager.
Be careful not to reveal something you shouldn’t about the companies you're interviewing with. For example, if you learn what your salary range might be, keep it to yourself. One woman interviewing at Cisco told her network what they offered her. She was immediately disqualified for breaking the company’s nondisclosure policy.