Social media is a marketing machine that can be used by company and individuals alike. As social media has grown in popularity and increased in use by companies especially recruiters, job seekers have used these tools to craft and market themselves using blogs to demonstrate their skills and knowledge, tweeting to reach hiring managers directly, and even developing full blown hire me campaigns landing interviews, and even getting hired. One of my favorite amazing social media recruitment and hiring stories comes from Marketer, DJ Waldow, who was laid off from his job on July 1, 2011.
Waldow has amazing business connections. He is also a very talented marketer. Instead of wallowing when DJ got the news of his termination, he took action. He set out to make something happen using the power of social media. The project on Twitter was called #projectawesome. Waldow called up some of his amazing business contacts and asked them to shoot a video. All he needed asked for was a few second video testimonial. His friends and colleagues happily complied, and #projectawesome launched with a four minute video of a series of testimonials from social media influencers and business experts including Jason Falls, Chris Brogan, the CEO of Douba, and Peter Shankman.
When the campaign launched in July, I had to write about it. Since then, a lot has happened. The testimonial video (see below) has nearly 1,800 views. Project Awesome used a number of different mediums to communicate his skills including a slideshare resume and even a video resume from Waldow himself. His blog post quickly gathered over one hundred comments; his slideshare resume has over 10,000 views and thousands of supportive tweets. While 1,800 YouTube video views may not seem very impressive, the social media support Waldow received was. Bloggers and social media community members like me came out in full force detailing and supporting his efforts.
The tools that DJ used to market and promote his job search are nearly free. He tapped into his network and asked for social referrals thinking outside of the box, knowing that in his industry video was a sure fire way to gain social media momentum and a hiring manager’s attention. He made it easy for recruiters and decision makers to see his skills having prepared his resume to be viewed via a traditional resume, presentation, or video.
His efforts were absolutely noticed. DJ became so in demand, that he announced the launch of his own company, Waldow Social. What makes DJ’s story so compelling is that he was prepared and even while employed he actively built and cultivated his network online as well as offline. Even in the vast space of social media and the internet, the industry is still very small and having the support of influential marketers, business professionals, and decision makers led the a successful end to his job search with the launch of his own consultancy.
