It’s not news that more and more companies are going to Google you before they even read your CV. That, however, happens after they find out that you’re looking for a new position and after you send them your resume for consideration.

But how are they going to find you or how are you going to find that the company is hiring?

Traditionally this is a job for head hunters, agents that would advertise new positions and seek for potential employees. Before social networking era, the only effective way for them to reach you, was listing open positions on jobsites and hoping that you will visit them and that you’d use right keywords for search.

With social networks becoming so popular things are starting to change. This is a chance for head hunters to start acting rather than reacting. Using social networking tools like LinkedIn or Facebook they can perform searches for expertise their clients are after.

What does it all mean for an IT (or, in fact, any other) specialist?

In short, this all means that if you care about your career, it is no longer enough to do your job and keep updating your CV with new achievements. Although your resume plays important role in selecting you as a potential employee, first it needs to reach someone’s hands in human resource department of the company. As we saw, this happens (usually) through a third party, in our case via a hypothetical headhunter. And if headhunters more and more turn to social networks for their searches, if you’re not in that network you’re basically unreachable for them.

So, when should you start building your social network? Obviously, if you want best results, start preparing long before you actually need to move on. Even if you do not plan to, it’s always a good thing to have a realistic view of the market you’re in. Here’s few point why social networks can benefit for your career:

• You’d build an “aura” around yourself, which positions you in the market niche. By participating in specialised groups and forums you’ll deliver a clear message about your expertise. A handful of clear and concise answers and participation in discussions about real life problems will deliver much more to your future employers than few ambiguous lines in your resume.
• You’ll raise your “rank”. The more you participate in discussions and conversations people will start recognising your knowledge and competence (assuming you really know what you’re talking about). If you gave a helpful advice to someone, he might refer his boss to you if they’re after a specialist of your skills.
• You’ll grow your network of people that you know directly or indirectly. With 200 first degree contacts in LinkedIn, you’ll be looking to have up to 1.2 million contacts in your network. Which means your profile is 1, 2 or 3 steps away from them and will appear in their searches and in fact they will be able to reach you. This means that you might be contacted every now and then regarding new positions.
• In turn, you will be able to search for open positions and apply for them. In both cases searches will be very narrow and rarely you’ll be contacted regarding positions that are completely unrelated.
• By participating in various conferences and discussions you’ll be boosting your technical knowledge. And because you’re in a group that has very similar interests you can take advantage of group’s combined wisdom in solving your everyday problems.

To participate efficiently, you need to develop habit of visiting your chosen social networking site on regular basis and actively participating in discussions there. That does not mean that you suddenly need to start writing ten posts a day.

• Try to keep your activity to everyday read and once a week write.
• No need to sign-up to more than one (or two, if you’re really active) social networking sites, as you’d loose track of what’s and where happening.
• In discussions, post only constructive answers. Thinking that you are being interviewed helps to filter out unnecessary emotions and also forces not to post without the necessity.
• When building your social network do not limit yourself to only people that you know very well. If you get an invite from someone working in your organization and if you at least exchanged few direct (or mailing list) emails, just accept it. Accepting invitations to connect from people you worked in previous companies and even if you don’t know them very well still acceptable. You gain at least one thing: you get “indirect” access to that company’s social network.
• If you participate in discussion boards outside the social network, try looking up people that you talk to there. Chances are that they also are users of the same social networking site. Invite them.
• Same applies to your business contacts. If you visit a booth in an expo and after some interesting discussion you exchange business cards with someone, don’t immediately put it in you drawer when you get back. Lookup that person and if (s)he is on the same network - invite.
• Keep it professional as much as possible. Informalities are allowed, it’s “social” network at the end of the day, but always keep in mind that your actions are public and this is what your potential employers are going to see.

These are just guidelines, obviously. And you need to develop your own habits and tactics that suite you the best. But participation in social network life should become art of your daily activities. Don’t let it to take it much of your time, though. Companies are recognising the threat as employees are wasting more their times on these sites during the office hours and start blocking them. Try limiting yourself to an hour per day, 30 mins at lunch time and 30 mins at home.It’s very easy to slip this into your dayly agenda and you’ll start seeing the benefits soon.