Practice Good Facebook Wall Etiquette when Job Seeking

By Joshua Waldman from Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies

The Facebook Wall is your venue for communicating with your network and letting people know what job you’re looking for. Proper etiquette is essential because the Wall is an amazing platform for expressing yourself. You need to use it wisely.

Don’t be desperate on your Facebook Wall

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 on your Facebook Wall

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 on your Facebook Wall

At least once a week, post something related to your industry and set the privacy to Everyone. 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 Wall:

Link to articles about your target industry.
Share your comments about a particular article. Your Wall 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 on your Facebook Wall

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. For example, 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.

Pitch your value (statement) on your Facebook Wall

A great way to let people know who you are and what you’re all about is to post your value statement on your Wall. An added bonus of posting your value statement on your Wall 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 Wall, you can set the post privacy to Everyone so that Google and unconnected people can see your statement.