Google has been a bench warmer in the social media community until the introduction of Google+. If you haven’t heard Google+ is Google’s new social media website. With Google+, the search engine has now matured and is going to become a major player not only in social media but in your career search. According to many sources Google+ has surpassed 50 million users. This makes it the fastest growing social site yet.
What does this mean for you and your job search?
Some of the same characteristics that you find in other social sites you will see in Google+. This includes your personal information which you need to make accurate and professional. You will also see a similar layout in the wall function and home screen. Creating accurate and appropriate information will help you become searchable.
The feature that makes Google+ unique for job seekers are the Circles. Circles are groupings of people that follow you or that you can follow. You can create and name circles, allowing you to distinguish between personal, professional, family or anything you want to segment. Recruiters can utilize circles on their end as well by creating new circles to include the unique roles they recruit. An example might be for a circle to be created for software developers or accounting professionals. This feature allows a person to send out a message that only specified circles can see. From both the job seeker and recruiter stand point it allows for specific messages to be sent out to specific groups thus making it easier to target an audience.
There are many other features that Google+ places at your fingertips. All of the tools that Google develops such as reader, Gmail, and docs are available in one click. New features such as hangouts allow you to video chat with up to 9 people. If Google can keep developing innovating features that add value it will continue to become more important to your job search.
What are your thoughts on Google+? How do you view it as a tool in recruiting and job searching?
