When I took the decision to search for employment last December – after a failed attempt to set up an online travel venture – it was clear to me that I would not search for employment opportunities the way I did it back in the 90s when I was last on the job market. No more “paper” CV sent to HR departments; instead, highly targeted emails to key business contacts and a strong online presence were to be the rules.

Having developed and launched a commercial website, it felt natural that my curriculum vitae should be online, and be only a component of a complete online information pack, including video presentation, testimonials, press coverage and other topic-specific web pages addressing my leadership skills and global expertise (www.stephanepingaud.info).

Beyond the ability to promote your skills, background and achievements effectively, a personal website makes it easy to distribute and spread your information through a multitude of contacts; it is also the most effective platform since you can insert Google Analytics coding, providing you with a great way to monitor the success of your website and results of your job search.

If you wish to read about how I went to set it up, read the following blog post: http://spingaud.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/i-love-html/

Thanks to URL shortening technology (bit.ly), all I needed to do then was to post an update on my preferred social networks: LinkedIn, Facebook, Viadeo and Twitter, to inform my personal and professional contacts of my new “situation” as a job hunter. In less than 140 characters, you can potentially inform the whole world that you’re looking for a job and generate job leads quickly (which is true that most of my sales leads were generated during the first 30 days).

These social networks, in particular LinkedIn, also proved to become my strongest ally in search. Once my job hunting strategy was clear, eg which industry sectors, companies and, to a lesser extent, executive search firms, did I wish to contact, LinkedIn helped me identify “introduction opportunities” through my 350+ contacts. It also became my central and critical repository for all news contacts made through my job search activities. Since the majority of these job hunting-related contacts would not translate into job leads right away, LinkedIn offers a great way to keep them updated of your job hunting progress through regular status updates.

The third and final component of my social media-based strategy was the launch of a blog (“The job hunter” athttp://spingaud.wordpress.com) that I thought would achieve three main objectives:

1. Let fellow job hunters benefit from my own experiences;

2. Reflect on my job hunting activities – and take some distance from this demanding exercise – by simply writing about them;

3. And not surprisingly, increase my visibility by demonstrating my sense of initiative and English writing skills.

Now, the question that remains to be asked: has this web/social-media-based strategy worked? Yes and no. While LinkedIn is helping me identify senior management contacts in target contacts, and my online CV provided me a good way to know what’s going on, I am not sure it has generated more sales leads than if I had followed a more “bilateral” strategy. I put together a ‘90 days status report’ document and it showed that six sales leads were generated in three months ending 31 March (one more has come out in April), out which 50% were the results of personal contacts.

“Relevant” visits to my website, eg visits of more than 1 page, have also been quite low in comparison to the number of people who received the link to this information (almost 400 emails and contacts). Regarding the blog, launched early March, regular readers are mostly friends and ex-colleagues. A few are however “total strangers” who have found the topic and insights helpful.

Another interesting conclusion from my first 90 days is the relatively low success of the video presentation, which has experienced only 51 visits, compared to the 56 and 60 visits enjoyed by respectively the ‘Press coverage’ and ‘Testimonials’ section. Also, a skills-specific page like ‘Leadership’ has proven to be quite popular with 47 visits in only one month (this page was added to my online CV early March).

On social media channels, LinkedIn should, in my view, be the preferred channel due to its strong business focus and global coverage, although Viadeo is more established in Southern Europe (France, Spain and Italy). For instance, by contributing to groups like Global Jobs Networks and posting status updates, LinkedIn was the primary referrer with 2/3 of the referring visits providing from this network. Facebook and a small and not targeted Twitter(*) network amounted for 25% and 7% respectively.

(*) This Twitter account was initially created to support the promotion of my online venture, hence a lot of travel-focused followers.

The bottom line – social media is a facilitator, and not a recipe for a successful job search. As with 10-15 years ago, you’ve got first to be clear about your goals: which position are you looking for? Which type of companies do you wish to work for? In which countries? Which aspects of your profile and experience should you put forward? Once this is clear, use social media platforms to make yourself highly visible and to reinforce your communication skills and sense of initiative.

In the end, your most “solid” professional contacts – ex-colleagues, ex-bosses and close friends – will be the ones that will help you get that first interview… together with the CEO of this dream company whom you contacted at the right time with the right message! Only those contacts can open doors and make some previously budget decisions in the area of recruitment irrelevant.

Note: “Social Media and Finding A Job” will be one of the topics of discussion during the WIT*e – Inspiration & Mentoring evening which starts at 7pm on Thursday, April 29, at the Fairmont Singapore.

Featured image credit (job search on internet) : iStock