Googling yourself may seem self-indulgent. But with more than one-quarter of Americans — and one-third of millennials — believing their online first impression is more important than their in-person introduction, you can start to see the appeal of grooming your Google results. Yet despite knowing just how important our own search results may be, a new survey by Domain.ME has found more than half of people don’t monitor what’s said about them online.

What’s more, the survey found more than half of respondents reported concern that their online persona could negatively impact their reputations — and they may be right. Nearly one in four Americans — and half of millennials — have been negatively impacted by online information about themselves. Another 42 percent of Americans admit they’ve changed their own opinions about someone else because of what they’ve uncovered online about them. And with employers commonly screening job candidates’ social media, you can quickly see how these stats could pose a problem to people’s personal and professional lives.

However, 53 percent of the survey respondents admitted they don’t monitor their own online information, while 60 percent have never searched their name on Google or any other search engine. Those who do search their names only do so once or twice a year, they say, despite the fact that just 20 percent of them find only and exactly what they’d want others to be able to read about them.

“More than three-billion people worldwide use the Internet every day,” Predrag Lesic, CEO of Domain.ME, said in a press release. “Online content about each of us creates a distinctive digital portrait — one that can be accessed by anyone at any time. The Internet is an increasingly powerful tool for making a first impression— both personally and professionally. As this survey shows, many of us can take a more proactive and mindful approach to online content, and use it to our advantage.”

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Protect Your Reputation

You probably know all the ways social media can help you professionally. You can demonstrate your expertise on a topic using Twitter, network your way to a new job using LinkedIn, and keep old connections fresh on Facebook.

But social media can also have a darker side.

78% of job recruiters check search engines for background on candidates, and 63 percent check social media sites, too. So it doesn’t matter how you set your privacy settings, whether you friend your boss on Facebook, or how few followers you have: What you do on social media every day can have a very real impact on your career and your salary.

Some social media blunders aren’t so obvious, even to those of you who know your way around a hashtag. Over the past couple of years, a few snafus have gained pop culture notoriety, earning nicknames like the “Cisco Fatty” incident or spawning a whole new name for getting caught skipping work: “pulling a Facebook Fairy.”

All in all, these hilarious blunders — summarized below — make for a perfect list of what not to do on your favorite social networking site, lest it cost you your job. To help you avoid making any missteps, we talked to two social media luminaries, Shama Kabani, CEO of The Marketing Zen Group and author of The Zen of Social Media Marketing; and Diane Danielson, Principal Consultant with DKDNew Media Strategies and co-author of The Savvy Gal’s Guide to Online Networking (or What Would Jane Austen Do?).

Read on for our list of the craziest social media blunders yet — and how not to make one of your own.

Tweet About an Interview or Job Offer

In what is now known as the “Cisco Fatty” incident, a graduate student scored a paid internship at Cisco, then promptly tweeted, “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”

A Cisco employee saw it and responded with, “Who is the hiring manager? I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.”

A better career move: Even if you’re not being rude in your tweet, still be careful. “The interview process shouldn’t be for public consumption until it’s a done deal,” Danielson says. “Your competition might say ‘Oh wait, there’s a marketing position available, maybe I’ll apply for it too!’”

If you want to share your excitement during the job search, try a more gracious post like, “Looking forward to my interview. The company looks like a great place to work.” Never conjecture publicly about how the interview went — you’re making assumptions that could rub the hiring manager the wrong way.

Play Hooky

Kevin Colvin will forever live in Facebook ignominy as an intern who claimed a family emergency on Halloween… but his co-workers saw a time-stamped picture of him dressed as a fairy and holding a beer. His boss fired him, cc’ing the entire company and including the picture. Now, getting caught online while playing hooky is called “pulling a Facebook Fairy.”

A better career move: First, don’t friend your co-workers on Facebook (that’s what LinkedIn is for). Also, don’t check in on Foursquare when you’re supposedly in bed.

But Danielson points out that staying offline isn’t enough: “Somebody could check in on Foursquare at the same place and say you were there, or post pictures of you on Facebook.” Stuff happens, so the easiest way to be safe is to just keep things above board.

Criticize Your Work Conditions…Unless You’re Serious

Five employees of the National Hispanics of Buffalo complained on Facebook about their company, and were all fired, even though they posted when they weren’t at work.

But there’s a twist: Complaining about your work conditions is technically protected speech under labor law, and in this and 13 other instances of terminations based on social media complaining, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) went to bat for the employees. In several cases the companies were forced to rehire the employees or settle with the board for monetary damages.

A better career move: Although criticizing wages, working hours, or conditions is technically protected under labor law, “You have to be really careful because most companies today have social media policies,” says Kabani. “If you are unhappy with work conditions, a private conversation with your supervisor will go much further than posting a scathing comment on Twitter. Also, it makes future employers look at you with a raised eyebrow.”

Post Off-Color or Tasteless Remarks

Examples abound of people being fired for racist and insensitive remarks, but some employers’ grounds for firing are subtler. A Walmart employee was fired for making remarks on Facebook like, “The government needs to step in and set a limit on the kids people are allowed to have based on their income. If you can’t afford to feed them, you shouldn’t be allowed to have them!!!” An offended customer reported him to management.

A better career move: We don’t want to say you shouldn’t be opinionated, but consider whom you might offend before you post; laws on what are grounds for firing vary from state to state. As a rule, avoid subjects like race, death, or disaster. The “too soon” effect — joking about a sensitive topic that just happened — is worse in 140 characters.

Tell the World That You’re Bored

One entry-level employee complained about her boredom on Facebook, and was promptly dismissed with a letter firing her because “you are not happy and do not enjoy your work.” Although saying you’re bored might be an obvious flub, far too many employees still post remarks like, “This work week is dragging.” That could still be considered a dig at your employer.

A better career move: While Danielson concedes that being bored isn’t usually enough to get you fired, she says, “I’m not going to promote someone who says they’re bored,” Danielson says. “She can get that fixed and obviously isn’t interested in doing so.” If you find yourself in this position, volunteer for more challenging projects or have a talk with your supervisor.

As for overenthusiastic TGIF posts, Habani would instead say something like, “Looking forward to enjoying family time this weekend!” That way, you aren’t offending your employer, but you’re still expressing your enjoyment that the work week is over.

Blog About Inappropriate Topics (Even Anonymously)

In 2004 former congressional staff assistant Jessica Cutler started an anonymous blog detailing her sex life, including being paid in exchange for sex. She was outed by a blog, fired, sued by one of the men she mentioned, and eventually had to declare bankruptcy. Even after the $300,000 from a book deal.

A better career move: If you start a personal blog, know that your co-workers will find out, even if you try to hide it. If you have serious issues with your workplace, have a plan B for when you get found out. Heather Armstrong of Dooce was able to parlay her firing into a successful blogging career, but she is the exception — not the rule.

If you just want to blog about your hobbies, review your company’s social media guidelines or talk to your supervisor about your plans. And don’t level damaging accusations without considering the consequences. Even if what you say is true, you could be buried under an expensive lawsuit.

Badmouth Your Clients

One Starbucks employee was fired when a (actually quite clever) YouTube video of him singing criticisms of customers reached Starbucks executives.

Call it hypersensitivity, but don’t even badmouth your client’s hometown! The day before a meeting with FedEx, advertising executive James Andrews dissed the company’s hometown, Memphis, via Twitter. He and his agency were forced to make a public apology.

A better career move: If you are steamed about your treatment by clients and something needs to change, take it up with your superior and brainstorm ways to improve the situation. But when you’re in public, sometimes you just need to put on a smile and kvetch to your friends in private.

Pick a Public Fight

When a PR professional tweeted about her frustration with a mean reporter, the reporter jumped into the ring and cursed at her in several tweets. Of course, this bad behavior wound up all over the internet. The reporter’s newspaper had to issue an apology on his behalf. If he hadn’t already resigned to work elsewhere, he probably would have been fired.

A better career move: If you’re getting criticized publicly, Kabani suggests you consider having a respectful, public conversation if the criticism is fair (even if it’s negative). “It can be helpful for others to see that you handle criticism well,” she says. “On the other hand, if someone is attacking you at a personal level (cyber bullying), then ignore them.” These individuals are “trolls,” and there is never much point in engaging with them, he says.

Talk Trash About Your Boss, Colleagues, or Organization

One reporter used Twitter to criticize typos from his colleagues and make fun of an intern. His snarky tweets were copied into an email and forwarded around the newsroom, leading to a sharp reprimand from his boss.

A better career move: If your boss or colleagues are truly insufferable and you hate your job, take our Build Your Career Bootcamp, which gives you a fair assessment of your options. If you decide to leave, you can communicate why in a respectful way in your exit interview.

Hang Loose When You Work With Children

When it’s your job to mold young minds, even small indiscretions can get blown out of proportion. Posting pictures from a bachelorette party, making fun of a student’s haircut and calling students “germ bags,” have all brought down the ire of parents and officials on teachers’ heads. One teacher was even fired for posting pictures of herself with alcoholic drinks in her hands, though she wasn’t Facebook friends with any of her students.

A better career move: If you work with children, your social media presence should be squeaky clean. “Do not friend colleagues and do not engage with any students,” Danielson says. “If they try to contact you, shut them down. Know your privacy settings inside and out.”

Stay on top of anything others say about you, as well: Kabani uses Google Alerts and socialmention.com — which keeps track of everything people are talking about on social media — to keep tabs on what’s being said about her and her clients.

The post 10 Facebook and Twitter Mistakes That Could Cost You Your Job appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

“Social media background checks are a hot item,” says attorney Kevin McCormick, “but I’m not a fan.”

Sneaky, Low, Invasive

Furthermore, social sleuthing smacks of “Sneaky,” “Low,” and “Invasion,” says McCormick. “One thing I know is what juries like and what they don’t like, and they don’t like that.”

Chair of the Labor and Employment Section of Baltimore law firm Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, LLP, McCormick is also a member of the 50-state Employers Counsel Network. His remarks came at the Advanced Employment Issues Symposium held recently in Las Vegas.

Legal Issues

McCormick points to the following issues involved in social media background checks:

• Privacy
• New state laws prohibiting password requests
• More information than you want (discovering protected class status can lead to Title VII and other discrimination claims)
• NLRA/Concerted Activity claims
• Fair Credit Reporting Act and state equivalent violations
• Negligent hiring
• State laws relating to off-duty conduct
• First Amendment

State Law Actions on Social Sleuthing

Many states have taken or are considering legislation related to social sleuthing, McCormick notes. For example:

• Illinois: Amended “Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act” to prohibit employers from requiring or requesting that employees or applicants reveal the usernames and passwords for personal accounts on websites such as Facebook and Twitter.
• Maryland: User Name and Password Privacy Protection and Exclusions Act: Employers may not refuse to hire an applicant or discipline employees for failure to disclose a user name, password, or related information.
• California: There is pending state legislation, the Social Media Privacy Act, that would prohibit requests for passwords or access.

Similar bills pending/soon to be passed in:

• New Jersey
• Delaware
• Massachusetts
• Minnesota
• Michigan
• South Carolina
• New York
• Washington
• Missouri
• Pennsylvania

Privacy and Off-Duty Conduct Concerns with Social Sleuthing

Furthermore, says McCormick, 29 states limit employer ability to regulate employees’ off-duty conduct:

• “Tobacco” states: Connecticut, District of Columbia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming
• “Legal Products” states: Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin
• “Lawful activities” states: California, Colorado, New York, and North Dakota

“Exercise caution when taking action based on lawful conduct described or in photographs on social media sites,” says McCormick.

Federal Level Action

On the federal scene, Sen. Charles Schumer (NY) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT) have pushed the EEOC and the DOJ to launch a federal investigation regarding legality of username and password requests, and the Password Protection Act of 2012 proposed federal legislation that would prohibit employers from compelling or coercing access to any online information stored anywhere on the Internet if that information is secured against general public access by the user.

Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, says that demanding passwords from employees “undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends…. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.”

And the ACLU has a “DemandYourdotRights” campaign that condemns employer password policies and pushes for legislation protecting password privacy.

The post Social media background checks? “I’m Not a Fan” appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

Sometimes our lives become so hectic that we don’t think before we make our next move, especially when it comes to the Internet. However, in one swift movement, our online image can be tarnished just by a few posts. What’s worse, it takes longer to win back the trust of your followers or even gain the confidence of a recruiter or hiring manger than it does to tear it down.

So, take some time to clean up your online image, even if you believe it’s spotless. Here’s how to get started:

Revamp every profile. Over the years, we tend to disregard certain profiles and give more attention to others. However, it’s important to keep a clean track record with all platforms, not just your favorites. Update your LinkedIn profile with your current work status, make your Twitter bio reflect your interests and industry, and list your experiences on Facebook.

Moreover, it’s important to get rid of the junk that has accumulated on your profiles. For example, if there are some questionable photos from your college days, get rid of them. Even though they may not be permanently deleted from the Web, at least they will be out of plain view.

Lastly, if you don’t use a particular profile anymore or you have a new blog, get rid of the old versions. It doesn’t exactly bode well for you if a hiring manager or recruiter finds dated material that’s not even updated. In this case, the “delete” button is your best friend.

Make some profiles private. Your privacy settings are important, especially when it comes to popular platforms like Facebook. Don’t be one of “those” people and leave it up to chance. Those who really want to find you will find a way, and they will judge you based on the content they see, even if it’s not by you or years old. However, if you don’t like the idea of ironclad privacy settings, at least hide things like your personal information, friends, images or videos. This will limit cases on mistaken identity and won’t put the spotlight on your private life.

Conversely, sites like Twitter and LinkedIn should remain open and updated often. Why? These types of social networking sites can bridge the gap between your personal and professional life if done correctly. They can be a huge asset to you, especially during the job hunt.

Stay away from bad influencers. It’s terrible to make assumptions about someone based on who they know. Unfortunately, that’s how it goes sometimes. However, knowing this information should help you make decisions, particularly regarding whom you follow and interact with. Just like good influencers can help you on your path to thought leadership and enhancing your personal brand, bad influencers can do just the opposite for your image. Be careful when networking with questionable characters, especially if your platforms are public. No matter how innocent you may seem, you can always be guilty by association.

The post Clean it Up: How to Fix Your Online Image appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

Over the past few years, several studies have been conducted looking at social media and employer hiring habits. One of those studies, conducted by Microsoft, showed that 70% of employers in the United States screened out potential employees because of information found online. The study also showed that the majority of recruiters and HR professionals indicated that they think it’s appropriate to consider personal information found online in screening potential job applicants.

This raised several questions in my mind: What procedures are in place to ensure that the information found online relates to the job candidate (there’s a Donna McNamara who was recently arrested and isn’t me)? Do they differentiate between information voluntarily posted by an individual versus information someone else posts about them? Is the information validated for accuracy? Are there potential legal ramifications of online searching?

In several of my classes, we discussed the importance of having a digital footprint and using various types of media to convey your personal brand. I’ve been to various speaker engagements that encourage job seekers to create professional websites and use Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to build a personal brand online. This way, when employers Google you, they find content you’ve created. For some recruiters, a lack of digital footprint is viewed as a negative; suggesting the applicant hasn’t written articles, created a website, blog or LinkedIn profile.

For potential employees, online information can be especially troublesome as in the case of personal networking sites like Facebook. Here, people openly post candid photos of themselves and allow others to tag them in photos. This often means drunken escapades are captured for general public consumption (think Jackass star Ryan Dunn tweeting a photo of himself drinking hours before reports of a fatal car accident). A potential employer may decide to screen out a candidate after seeing some questionable photos or posts. Here are a few common reasons why employers have screened out potential job candidates:

• Falsifying information about qualifications
• Poor communication skills (spelling and grammar count!)
• Discriminatory comments were found on posts
• Posts about excessive drinking or drug usage
• Provocative or inappropriate photographs or information posted
• Bad mouthing of previous employer, co-workers or clients
• Sharing of confidential information from previous employer

And, here are some reasons employers have hired potential candidates:

• Solid communication skills displayed
• Profile provided a good feel for the applicant’s personality and fit
• Creativity displayed
• Awards, accolades and good references posted
• Profile supported applicant’s qualifications

Issues with online search don’t just impact potential job candidates. Recruiters and HR staff doing the searching can open themselves up for trouble by obtaining too much information. For example, personal networking sites often include information about race, religious beliefs, age, sexual orientation and marital status; factors NOT to be considered in pre-employment screening. By searching potential candidates’ personal sites, recruiters become exposed to information that does not pertain to the applicant’s ability to perform the job and may inadvertently consider factors such as age, race, etc.

I’ve experienced the use of waivers and releases at the point of application to circumvent such issues so employer concerns may become less problematic. In addition, some organizations put blocks on social networking sites so that information may not even be available to them. So what can you do to make sure your online image is what you want it to be? Bottom line – clean up your social networking sites.

• Don’t have photos you wouldn’t want an employer to see.
• No drunken escapades, no profanity, or slurs.
• Don’t bad mouth former employers, bosses or co-workers.
• Make your social networking sites private.
• Sweat the small stuff. Your email address, spelling, and grammar speak to your maturity and communication skills.

The post Is Your Digital Footprint Squashing Your Reputation? appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

Many people have questioned the need for personal branding. Is it worth all the effort? Is it only for celebrities? How does it relate to the job search? When we analyze the use of branding by public figures and corporations, it is evident that they successfully manage to appeal to us by developing an ongoing relationship with us. They become experts in their fields as they’ve been able to associate themselves with human needs and wants by utilizing media strategies. When you think luxury and mobility, perhaps you think BMW or Mercedes. After you have finished a long workout, and you are looking for something to “quench your thirst” perhaps you think of Gatorade. When you think of Donald Trump, you think of extravagance, as he has attached luxury to almost any product by simply putting the TRUMP name on it. When you think of Oprah, you think of honesty and openness, which has enabled her to increase sales of almost any product by simply recommending it. So what do people think when they say your name?

If you cannot answer this question then you have an ineffective brand. But don’t worry, not all is lost. The internet has provided people with the ability to create a brand just like Oprah, Donald Trump, BMW, Mercedes, and Gatorade all within the budget of the average Joe. In the past, you needed millions of dollars to market a brand because the only outlets where high-cost forums, like television or magazines. Now with the internet and social media, the only cost for marketing a brand is your time.

The internet and social media have also made it increasingly important to brand yourself or your company online. The competition for jobs has become more intense over the years. Not only as the job competition intensified locally, but with the emergence of globalization, job seekers are now competing with people in China, Mexico, India, and other developing regions. The increased supply of workers is forcing job candidates to become experts in their fields if they want to stand a chance at gaining employment.

So how do you develop this online brand? Dan Schawbel is a world-renowned personal branding expert and the bestselling author of Me 2.0. Dan suggests’ the following:

Discover your brand: The biggest mistake that people make is branding themselves just for the sake of branding themselves. You need to brand based on what your passion is. Think about what you want to do for the rest of your life. Set goals. Think about a personal branding statement: what you do and who you serve.

Create your brand: This means getting business cards regardless if you are a college student or CEO. Make sure you have a great resume that showcases your accomplishments. Develop a blog or website and sign up for LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Align your wardrobe to suit your personal brand. The clothes you wear are becoming increasingly important because they will be viewable through your online pictures, which will reinforce your brand. Do not underestimate the power of an email address. Your email should be listed as firstname.lastname@domain.com.

Become a networker: The size of your network will be a major factor on your ability to get jobs in the future. The Internet has made your personal network visible for the first time in history. Companies can view your social accounts and find out how connected you are. How many Facebook friends do you have? How many Twitter followers do you have? How about your Linkedin contacts? How many people are currently subscribed to your blog? The people with the largest networks are going to get the jobs because networks illustrate the ability to build relationships, which could be vital for the jobs that candidates pursue.

Good luck developing that personal brand and remember to inspire for only the best!

The post Discover the Brand in You appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

If you need a job, or just want a better one, here’s a number that will give you hope: 50,000. That’s how many people the giant consulting firm Accenture plans to hire this year. Yes, actual jobs, with pay. It’s looking for telecom consultants, finance experts, software specialists, and many more. You could be one of them — but will Accenture find you?

To pick these hires the old-fashioned way, the firm would rely on headhunters, employee referrals, and job boards. But the game has changed. To get the attention of John Campagnino, Accenture’s head of global recruiting, you’d better be on the web.

To put a sharper point on it: If you don’t have a profile on LinkedIn, you’re nowhere. Partly motivated by the cheaper, faster recruiting he can do online, Campagnino plans to make as many as 40% of his hires in the next few years through social media. Says he: “This is the future of recruiting for our company.”

Facebook is for fun. Tweets have a short shelf life. If you’re serious about managing your career, the only social site that really matters is LinkedIn. In today’s job market an invitation to “join my professional network” has become more obligatory — and more useful — than swapping business cards and churning out résumés.

Make the most of your LinkedIn profile

More than 60 million members have logged on to create profiles, upload their employment histories, and build connections with people they know. Visitors to the site have jumped 31% from last year to 17.6 million in February. They include your customers. Your colleagues. Your competitors. Your boss. And being on LinkedIn puts you in the company of people with impressive credentials: The average member is a college-educated 43-year-old making $107,000. More than a quarter are senior executives. Every Fortune 500 company is represented. That’s why recruiters rely on the site to find even the highest-caliber executives: Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) found CFO Jeff Epstein via LinkedIn in 2008.

The reason LinkedIn works so well for professional matchmaking is that most of its members already have jobs. A cadre of happily employed people use it to research clients before sales calls, ask their connections for advice, and read up on where former colleagues are landing gigs.

In this environment, job seekers can do their networking without looking as if they’re shopping themselves around. This population is more valuable to recruiters as well. While online job boards like Monster.com focus on showcasing active job hunters, very often the most talented and sought-after recruits are those currently employed. Headhunters have a name for people like these: passive candidates. The $8 billion recruiting industry is built on the fact that they are hard to find. LinkedIn changes that. It’s the equivalent of a little black book — highly detailed and exposed for everyone to see.

For a generation of professionals trained to cloak their contacts at all costs, this transparency is counterintuitive. So far most conversations about how to use social networks professionally have focused on what not to do: Don’t share drunken photos on Facebook. Don’t use Twitter to brag about playing hooky from the office.

But as companies turn to the web to mine for prospective job candidates, it’s no longer advantageous to refrain from broadcasting personal information. Instead, the new imperative is to present your professional skills as attractively as possible, packing your profile with keywords (marketing manager, global sourcing specialist) that will send your name to the top of recruiters’ searches.

At the same time, you can connect your online professional interactions in one place, joining groups on the site (LinkedIn has more than 500,000 of them, based on companies, schools, and affinities), offering advice, and linking your Twitter account and blog updates to your profile.

“You Google other people, so don’t you think they’re Googling you?” LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman asks. “Part of a networked world is that people will be looking you up, and when they do, you want to control what they find.” Helping you present yourself well online is just the start. LinkedIn plans to go far beyond, making itself an active and indispensable tool for your career path. The secrets lie buried in the data: those 60 million profiles, including yours.

The brains behind LinkedIn’s tech upgrade

In a business where data wonks are rock stars, Dipchand (“Deep”) Nishar is Bono. During his five-year tenure at Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Nishar, 41, was instrumental in developing its ad platform, its mobile strategy, and products for the Asia-Pacific region. Hoffman spent almost a year recruiting him to be vice president of products, until finally, in January 2009, Nishar took a right out of Google’s Mountain View, Calif., parking lot and drove two blocks to his new office at LinkedIn’s headquarters.

Having so much experience in Asia, where mobile messaging and other social networks were adopted even faster than in the U.S., Nishar understood the value of a system that would help consumers organize all those digital relationships.

But it was one personal interaction that really sold him on LinkedIn’s potential. Nishar was trying to decide whether his daughter, who was 12 at the time, should spend her summer at a program offered by Johns Hopkins University. He posted the question to his status update on both Facebook and LinkedIn. While he received more comments on Facebook, they were casual and congratulatory. Only four of his LinkedIn contacts wrote him, but they offered a rich analysis, describing experiences with the Johns Hopkins program that left them better off academically; they persuaded him to enroll his daughter. “People are in a different context and mindset when they’re in a professional network,” he says.

This was Hoffman’s bet when he founded the site in 2003. It was just after eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500) paid $1.5 billion to buy PayPal, where Hoffman had been a founding board member and executive vice president, and he was casting about for his next big project. Hoffman, 42, was already one of Silicon Valley’s most hyperconnected players, with investments in dozens of other startups (including Facebook), so it was natural for him to think of a way for people to build on their links.

“I realized that everyone will have their professional identity online so they can be discoverable for the things that will be important to them,” he remembers, waving his hand as he sits back in his chair. “The obvious one is jobs, but it’s not just jobs. It’s also clients and services. It’s people looking to trade tips on how you do, say, debt financing in the new capital markets.” Backed by other angel investors like him, Hoffman and four others put up the initial funding and gathered a tiny staff to launch the site as a bare-bones operation in his Mountain View home.

At first, users were slow to embrace the service. Plenty of Web 2.0 entertainment websites were enjoying meteoric rises and monstrous buyouts by big media companies. (In fact, after helping fund YouTube, Hoffman gave its founders office space for three weeks in their early days.)

By comparison, LinkedIn seemed a little static; it was only for résumés. As Facebook caught on among bona fide adults, it created a population of web users fluent in updating their status, posting links, and microblogging. Hoffman could sense that social networking was finally becoming mainstream, and he needed to give LinkedIn’s users a reason to stick around before they moved their résumés and other professional information to platforms like Facebook. So last December he recruited former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner to step into the CEO position. And he won over Nishar.

John Klodnicki wasn’t looking for a job when he took the call from an IBM recruiter who had found his profile on LinkedIn. As a program director for data-storage company EMC, he spent five days a week on the road consulting with pharmaceutical companies. “I was moderately happy,” he said. Sure, all that traveling was a drag.

On that Friday afternoon Klodnicki was scarfing a sandwich while standing in the security line at the airport in Providence, trying to get home to his family in New Jersey. The line was long, so he had the time to chat about opportunities. After going through several rounds of interviews, the initial job fell through, but the relationship had been started. He kept in touch, and last September, Klodnicki started work as an associate partner developing new business with pharmaceutical companies at IBM’s Philadelphia office, just half an hour from his home.

Thanks to LinkedIn, people like Klodnicki are increasingly easy to find. “It’s a great equalizer for us. It gives the recruiter an opportunity to reach out directly to a candidate,” says Annie Shanklin Jones, who heads U.S. recruiting for IBM (IBM, Fortune 500). “In a company the size of IBM, that’s significant.”

IBM has always been one of the first companies to experiment with new social technologies. Its recruiters use Twitter to broadcast job openings, and the company organizes its own talent communities. But Jones says LinkedIn is the most important social-media site for reaching prospective hires.

Cost saving is a major motivation for companies looking to bypass big headhunting firms. “If I were going to go out to a major recruiting firm, for example, we could potentially pay upwards of $100,000 to $150,000 for one person,” says Accenture’s Campagnino. “Start multiplying that by a number of senior executives, and you start talking about significant numbers of dollars very quickly.”

If anybody should be nervous about that, it’s L. Kevin Kelly. As CEO of Heidrick & Struggles, one of the most prominent recruiting firms, he has made a living out of the hiring market’s opacity. As he watched the rise of LinkedIn, he knew it was a disruptive force he would have to learn well; last summer he flew to the Bay Area to have dinner with Hoffman.

Their companies have a complicated relationship. On the one hand, LinkedIn is a welcome tool for recruiters, and Heidrick & Struggles is a customer. LinkedIn’s software allows recruiters to search its database without access to photographs, thus keeping in compliance with antidiscrimination laws, and to contact anybody in the LinkedIn network. But the recession forced companies to cut back on their budgets for outside firms.

Heidrick & Struggles’ revenues fell 36% in 2009, and while business has started to creep back, Kelly is aggressively trying to remake the company as an adviser rather than simply a search company, offering consulting on ways to handle staffing issues and select board members. Now it’s just 7% of the business, but he expects it to grow to half of what Heidrick & Struggles does.

There will still be a need for headhunters and traditional methods of hiring, though, because LinkedIn doesn’t work for everything. And it has to be used carefully.

“If you’re not managing that site, you can erode your brand,” says Arlette Guthrie, the vice president of talent management at Home Depot. Guthrie has learned how to use the site through trial and error. Over the past few years she experimented with using LinkedIn for all hires — including seasonal workers, Home Depot will need 80,000 people in the next year — but discovered that LinkedIn didn’t offer better applicants for the bulk of the company’s positions, mostly in their retail stores. Though plenty of cashiers and doctors and teachers join LinkedIn, the site’s primary membership is corporate professionals.

Now Guthrie uses LinkedIn mostly for three hard-to-fill areas: supply chain, information technology, and global sourcing. Some of Guthrie’s recruiters spend time daily on the site, reading up on potential candidates, chatting with them in groups and on message boards, and responding to inquiries. The approach has worked well. Using services like this on the Internet she has been able to bring down the time it takes to fill the positions, an important metric among recruiters, by nearly half.

At the entry to the “Hope” classroom on the satellite campus of Belhaven University in Houston, Susan Thorpe passes out a small book called 12.5 Ways to Get Ahead on LinkedIn. Up front, her husband, Doug Thorpe, who self-published the guide, has drawn a diagram on the whiteboard that looks like an elaborate football play. A series of circles labeled one, two, and three stretch out from a central bubble labeled you. A dozen job seekers take notes as Thorpe describes how to call upon first-level contacts — those former colleagues and friends you’ve befriended on the site — to reach second-level contacts. It’s a process as old as human relations: Hey, could you introduce me to your friend? Thorpe explains the etiquette and technique of doing it digitally. “Write a personal note when you ask someone to connect,” he tells his students.

Thorpe, 57, is one of hundreds of consultants who have sprung up to help professionals establish themselves online. After he lost his mortgage company two years ago in the real estate crash, he started Jobs Ministry Southwest, a religious nonprofit that offers free support for job seekers in the greater Houston area. A dozen of the 160 people who attended the previous day’s support group have paid $24.95 for a half-day introduction to LinkedIn.

Thorpe’s main message to his clients is that it’s important to complete your profile. Get recommendations from former co-workers. Use keywords to bring out the skills you want to highlight. Join groups: Recruiters often scour professional groups to round up potential candidates. Answer questions from colleagues that showcase your professional expertise.

One of the students, Heinz Meyer, exhales audibly at the prospect of all that time online. “This could turn into a 24/7 thing real quick,” says Meyer, 67, who had just lost his job at Universal Pegasus, a pipeline construction company. Thorpe responds by suggesting the class spend a concentrated amount of time on the site each day, say 30 minutes. Believe it or not, LinkedIn doesn’t pay this guy.

There is much debate in the class about Thorpe’s suggestion that job seekers should include professional photographs with their profiles. (“Don’t use dogs, horses, cats, or cows in the background,” he says.) Older job seekers in particular are worried that their gray hair will trigger age discrimination. There are drawbacks to so much transparency, they argue. Doesn’t it ensure that employers potentially know more about you than they should?

It’s a question Hoffman considered right from the start. For all the benefit that LinkedIn brings to the job hunt, it can’t erase fundamental challenges in the job market. One big reality is that plenty of baby boomers are out of work as the industries in which they’ve developed three decades of expertise move overseas or change irrevocably.

These job hunters will need to reinvent themselves in new careers. The thing about social-networking profiles is that they don’t lie, at least not successfully. You can’t fudge your experience or hide your age, because your connections know you in real life. So Hoffman is inclined to agree with Thorpe’s advice: Post your photo. “A LinkedIn profile lets you represent yourself as strong as you can, so build that to your advantage,” he says.

Okay, but how do you finally land a job? It’s the last question that Thorpe’s students ask as he wraps up his lecture. Thorpe turns back to the elaborate diagram on the board, pointing to the circled numbers. Social networking is just a more efficient way of reaching out to people you know — and people they know. You work the network. You connect with people like John Campagnino at Accenture if you want a job in consulting. Then you turn off the computer, and you call your connections on the phone. And you invite them to lunch.

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