Blog « Hire Vine – Jobs for Thought Leaders

You just received a message from Facebook: Your boss wants to add you as a friend. What do you do? If you say yes he’ll be privy to a lot of personal stuff, but no one wants to say no to the boss.

How do you handle this sort of thing?

If you don’t invite your boss to family barbecues or parties with your friends, why would you invite him access to your Facebook account? There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to separate both personal and private lives. If your boss wants to follow you on a social network ignore the request. Hopefully it’ll pass. If he brings it up and asks why you haven’t friended him, politely explain that it’s nothing personal, but you prefer to keep your private life private.

You can’t get in trouble for not having an employer as a Facebook friend any more than you can get in trouble for not inviting him to dinner or out for drinks.

Don’t be afraid to draw the line.

HireVine is a brand new, job site for social media job seekers. Right now you see periodic updates featuring blogging, community manager and social marketing gigs. As we rise out of our beta stage, expect to find daily gigs and more.

HireVine is much more then jobs, however. It’s about a community of job seekers helping each other. We’ll be rolling out more features and tools as we progress, but there are still plenty of ways to interact now. Use the comments to discuss the opportunities. If you applied for a job and it was a clunker, come back and let us know. If you applied for a job and like what you see, come back and let us all know. If you have tips for applying for certain gigs, by all means share. Use the voting buttons to tell everyone what you think about the jobs and recommend gigs to others.

Check out the resume section and help your fellow job seekers. Offer a respectful critique of the resumes posted here. If you see a type or something that is better left out, kindly remark in the comments. We’re here to help each other find work!

Soon, we’ll be offering video resume and job ad capabilities, but at the moment you can upload your YouTubes. We’re also going to have more interaction with the people who hire.

We’re excited about HireVine’s beta launch, and we hope you are too!

Here’s something to think about: More and more employers are “Googling” job candidates. In fact, they have Human Resources personnel on staff whose job it is to do Internet searches. Regardless of your personal thoughts on this topic, it’s something to consider. The next time you rant about a job or post risque photos, think about who will be viewing. It’s not always going to be friends. It might be an employer who finds your behavior inappropriate.

Granted, somethings aren’t an employer’s business. However, they have an image to protect. If one of their employers has a dirty video or obscene rants online, they’ll probably pass you up for that V.P. of Social Media gig.

What do you think?

Next time your trolling the job boards, add Twitter Job Search to your list. If there’s a job being Tweeted, it will show up on this search engine. Yes, it will pick up a few tweets that aren’t jobs, but for the most part it’s a good source for finding job leads.

Try it, and then come back and tell us what you think!

A quick tip for those hunting for social media jobs:

Social media is changing all the rules, even when job hunting. For example, you wouldn’t list the number of FaceBook Friends and Twitter followers on your resume for a traditional job, but when applying for a  social media it’s acceptable…and encouraged. If you’re hired to create a heavier web presence, your clients are going to want to know you walk the walk. They don’t want to hire one of the new “social media experts” who have 11 followers.

Go ahead an include the number of followers you have on the various social networks but don’t make that the resume’s central point. Highlight your other areas of expertise as well, especially in the areas of marketing and customer service. Potential employers want to see how you use the social media space, don’t be afraid to show them.

Welcome to HireVine. A different kind of job search site. Instead of a  simple listing of the day’s top social media jobs, HireVine will allow members to vote on jobs and resumes, offer kind, constructive criticism in the comments, recommend jobs to other members and via email and more.

The blog will offer useful tips for all job searchers and video resumes and job listings are coming soon.

Hirevine is free to join, free to use and free to post jobs. Come join and share.