Online networks may help job-hunting: surveys

"Job seekers should tap into online networking sites to help hunt down potential employers, new surveys suggest.

The polls, conducted in Canada and the United States on behalf of California-based recruitment firm Robert Half International (RHI.N), showed that most executives believe that professional networking sites will prove useful over the next three years for job seekers...

RHI provided five suggestions for benefiting from online networking:

• Craft your profile carefully
• Ask for recommendations
• Build your list of contacts
• Don't post anything you wouldn't want an employer to see
• Don't stop networking once you have a job"

New Feature: Coworkers.com Adds Personal Avatar & Multiple Picture Upload Support

Coworkers.com has added picture-uploading tools for registered users! Users can upload multiple images to share with others. In addition to having a picture library, users can upload a default photo to use as their avatar (personal icon), which will be displayed on their Coworkers.com profile page.

We feel that it is a good opportunity for our users to share images related to their professional identity. This can be as standard as a great portrait photograph to display on their profile page, to screen-shots or project images from their business portfolio. Pictures speak volumes, and a handful of impressive images coupled with our other features such as unbiased reviews, and work experience, can help project a balanced representation.

Supported image formats are jpg, gif, and png with a maximum individual file size of 3 MB. Animations are not supported.

Feature Update: Site Stats & Data Page

Our new Site Stats & Data Page is live! Think of it as a dashboard that tracks the cool stuff happening across the Coworkers.com network of users. From this page you can check out:

• Fun facts like: Average review ratings; averages by gender; averages by signed or anonymous rating; highest and lowest rated profiles; and more
• Top keyword searches on the site
• Top companies represented on the site
• Most sent Zingers
• Most viewed Forum threads

We'll also be highlighting a power-user profile as "Coworker of the month". Site Stats & Data is a great addition to the site. It allows our users to get a quick overview of what's hot, and how they can get more out of the aggregate data on the site.

Feature Update: Added "Share With a Friend"

So, you saw a cool/funny/interesting profile on Coworkers.com, and you thought to yourself, "gee, it would be nice to share this cool/funny/interesting profile with my friends who appreciate cool/funny/interesting stuff, but I'm too lazy to switch to my mail editor and write a message?" No problem! You can now just click on the "Share" link, tweak the message if you like, enter your friends' addresses, and presto! - they'll get your message right away. You can thank us later.

Building a Brand Through Social Networks

Just as there are many facets to an individual, there are many sites that fall into the social networking category. Rather than putting all of their eggs in one basket, many savvy folks are creating profiles on multiple sites, taking advantage of the unique strengths of each. We believe this is a sound approach.

"With all that’s going on with social networking these days, we’re seeing a lot of figures leverage the popularity of social networks to gain visibility for themselves... One key takeaway from these guidelines is to remember that smaller, even niche social networks can be used to build up your presence in larger communities. A lot of smaller sites offer tools that will let you incorporate additional content that’s important for branding purposes, as well as ways to manage your overall web presence, offering compatible tie-ins with larger networks."

Of course, we feel Coworkers.com makes a great addition to your social networking strategy.

Playing e-Detective

"Checking out applicants online can save you trouble - and get you into it."

This is an older article, but still pertinent.