Tammy Young recently wrote in to Career Enlightenment with a breakdown of how she went from unemployed to Product Manager at Ernst & Young. I asked if I could share her strategy with you and she agreed. Thank you Tammy!

The biggest take-a-way from Tammy was that she prepared her social media plan and polished off her strategy preparations before applying to her job. I’ll share with you what she did exactly to prepare below. Here is the story of how it all went down in her own words. Keep in mind she was already very prepared to respond to this opportunity:

I was laid off early last fall, but I started looking in August. Mid-October, I saw the tweet about a social media product manager position at Ernst & Young via one of my future colleagues. He’d noticed #hirefriday and thinking social media was a good place to look for a social media person, he tweeted about the job. I immediately replied that I was interested and we started talking via email. I shared my resume, my site, and what I was seeking in a new job. He submitted an employee recommendation for me for the positions – internal and external social media. I interviewed for one position in December and the other in January. I visited the office in March, was offered the position in April, and started in May. I looked for nearly nine months and I’d officially been out of work for six.
I switched industries, went from 3500 employees to 140,000+, moved to a new city, and got the job I wanted. It was worth the time and effort.

She Was Lasar Focused

What’s most noteworthy about Tammy’s strategy is how lasar focused she is. She knows what she wants to do and for whom. She says she learned the importance of this type of clarity from a local networking group called, She’s Geeky: Twin Cities. In her own words:

I spent time clarifying my goals and made sure that I was only applying to jobs that were truly a good fit for my experience and my goals. For a third of my applications, I received an interview. In last year’s economy, that was amazing and I am pretty proud of it.

She Had a Brand Figured Out First

Tammy first figured out how she wanted to brand herself. She selected, “Professional MacGyver” as her branded image and build her online reputation around this. Then she shared lots of great information about herself. Here are the steps she took:

  • She bought a domain name with her brand
  • She shared events she was participating in, which was updated weekly to show she is still active and relevant
  • A description of her unique skills, that which sets her apart
  • A professional summary
  • A personality-rich photo

Through this, she looked like a real person, not just an other applicant.

She Polished Her LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Presence

For LinkedIn, Tammy did the following:

  • She customized her profile for the positions she most wanted to get.
  • She looked at advertisements for the type of jobs she wanted to have,  found keywords that she included in her profile.
  • She used LinkedIn to elaborate on details she couldn’t include in her resume knowing that recruiters and future employers were going to be looking for more.

For Twitter Tammy did the following:

  • She amped up her Twitter usage to increase her visibility and interaction with key people in her target industries.
  • She got involved in the very active Twitter job search and career communities. Each day, recruiters, career counselors, and other job hunters were sharing great, free advice on Twitter particularly in chats like #careerchat and #jobhuntchat.

Through those chats, I met some amazingly supportive and encouraging people who helped give me the push I needed to keep plugging away: @girlmeetsgeek, @annemessenger, and @avidcareerist.

  • She got the opportunity to guest blog for @myfootpath about her experience and share her thoughts on being a Professional MacGyver.

For her Google Resume (first 3 pages of a Google search for her name) she did the following:

  • Published as much content as possible with her name on it
  • Checked her rankings regularly to make sure she was happy with search results
  • Used Vizibility to manage her search results

What About You?

Now that you’ve read about how Tammy nailed her job search with social media and a clear strategy, what are you going to do differently? Pick one thing from this post that you will do, and then do it. Let me know how it goes in the comments below. Perhaps we can help!