30 Days Into Personal Social Media Campaign to Find an Opportunity

My personal social media campaign to find my next opportunity began 30 days ago.  It has evolved quite a bit over the past month – helped me make some big decisions, some new contacts and had some great successes.  One thing that is very strange to me is that more people are not using social media to find employment – especially with so many people out of work.

I started this project on February 1st with a goal of finding a job – pretty much anything with a paycheck.  Thankfully, that did not work out so well – people kept on asking me what type of job I wanted to get.  So I’ve had to figure that out.  Not easy, and may still need some change or refinement, but very, very worthwhile.

A friend of mine who I know through Social Media Club Seattle, Paolo Tosolini, had asked for my resume a few months ago (before he set out as a consultant and was still working with Microsoft).  He said I would be a good “generalist”.  Now I’ve probably had more greatly varied work experience than 99% of the population and have often referred to myself as a Jack of All Trades, Master of None, but for some reason I was still offended.  My resume needed some work – and I have updated it to reflect the type of position I am really looking for: a position as a Community Builder/Evangelist or possibly a Web Community Manager role.  I think I would be a good asset for the right organization, especially considering my recent history of building the Eastside Entrepreneurs Online Social Network and organizing, attending and speaking at social media conferences (including the upcoming Social Media 201 Conference on April 15th).

Although a job search or as in this case a search for my next opportunity, typically moves much slower than desired – I feel like I’ve had decent success in the first 30 days.  Although I’ve spent a considerable amount of time working on some of my social media consulting client’s projects, my social media campaign has helped me secure two new clients (who I am building Web 2.0 / Social Media-friendly websites for) and part-time employment for a local non-profit (which I hope to be able to announce this Friday).  I also have A LOT of people who know what I am looking for – and have offered to help me in any way possible.  I’m feeling very fortunate and know that I’ll find the right opportunity at just the right time.

As I mentioned above, I am very surprised that more people are not using social media to find employment.  I think that a big part of that is that many may be uncomfortable letting “the whole world” that they are out of work and looking for employment.  I have long considered my life an open book and have shared a lot about myself that many probably would not share about themselves (and some don’t want to know about me).  Looking for an opportunity and letting everyone know about through the use of social media is not something I’m ashamed of at all – in fact I’m rather happy with being able to share this information and enjoy all the support that has been shown by my friends and contacts, as well as many who I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting.  The bottom line is that once I do find the perfect opportunity through the use of social media and let people know how I did it, I fully believe that many people will start using some of my techniques.

One thing I will work to change in the next couple of weeks:  I really want to dedicate more time to blogging here on this site and have been planning posts including:

- Some of the great companies and organizations I have learned about during my personal social media campaign
- The Mane Event on Main, the benefit event for Overlake Service League on April 15th, when I finally get to harvest my hair for the benefit of disadvantaged children with medical challenges (we’re looking to recruit others to donate their hair as well).
- Wondering what some of the more successful people in social media (and other types of businesses) would think about some of my methods and techniques.  I want to make sure to include a number of brilliant people like Mark Cuban, Robert Scoble, Biz Stone, Gary Vaynerchuk,  Tony Robbins and Wayne Dyer in this post.  Are there any women in business, tech or blogging that I should include?

As always, I would love to read and respond to your valued input.  Thank you for reading.
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