Survey: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook can help lawyers get a job

Unemployed or underemployed lawyers ought to be using social media and social networking sites as part of their efforts to gain employment per Jobvite’s 2011 Social Recruiting Survey.

82% of jobseekers are using social networks and they’re are meeting success.

• 1 in 6 workers used social media to get hired.
• Almost 90% of job seekers have a profile on a social media site.
• 54% of all job hunters use Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to find jobs.
• 50% of job seekers used Facebook, 25% used Twitter, and 36% used Linkedin to look for a job in the last 12 months.
• 18.4 million Americans say Facebook got them their current jobs. The numbers for Twitter and Linked in are 10.2 million and 8 million respectively.

No question employers are using social media and social networking sites to recruit. Look at the survey’s findings.

• 89% will recruit in social networks this year, up from 83% in 2010.
• 87% use LinkedIn and 2/3 use two or more networks for recruiting.
• 95% report they’ve hired through LinkedIn.
• Social recruiting works for employers: 2/3 have successfully hired through social networks.
• Employers find best outside talent comes from referrals, direct sourcing and social networks.
• Social media leads all other categories for increased investment.
• Candidate online profiles matter even more to companies in 2011.

Why do social networks work for job seekers and recruiters?

Networking leads to relationships. Relationships lead to meetings and referrals. Sharing insight and commentary leads to reputation enhancement. Online profiles and the online activity that accompanies profiles provide a 360 view of a candidate – good for an employer and good for you as a lawyer looking for a job.

As a lawyer how can you use social networks and social media in your search for a job? Get off your duff, overcome your fears, experiment with social media, and get out and network online so as to get meetings off-line.

• Follow people you’d like to work for on Twitter, share what they are sharing, and follow it up by connecting with them on LinkedIn.
• Share news and information on Twitter that’s relevant to the area of law you want to practice in. You’ll pick up a following, including those people you want to meet.
• Blog. Nothing shows one’s passion and insight more than blogging. No, you’re not going to offer the same insight and commentary that a lawyer practicing in the field for 20 years can share. But by third year of law school you were capable of clerking and offering summary, insight, and opinions on the law. We’ve had a least of couple law students on the LexBlog Network blog their way to jobs.
• Follow the firms you’d like to work with by name in RSS feeds and in LinkedIn. Connect in LinkedIn with the lawyers you’d like to meet and potentially work with. If blogging, cite their blogs, offering your additional insight. Let them know you cited or shared their blogged content.
• Are their well known law blogs relevant to the area in which you want to work? Comment on the blogs. Ask to blog for them or other online law sites. Get your name out there.
• Use the advance search in LinkedIn to find lawyers who went to your undergrad, law school, or who work in areas you want to work in. Connect with them and meet them.
• When you find lawyers and small law firms doing the work you want to do, offer to work for them for free – they need research and briefing. Not only will you have your foot in the door at that firm, but you can tell other potential employers how you’re out hustling to hone your skills – something employers will hear from other candidates.

Getting a job is more about preparation, perseverance, and passion than responding to a job opening with a resume or going to the right law school. Social networks and social media allow you to demonstrate all three.

I got my first job at a law firm by cold knocking on the doors of law firms I wanted to work for and asking to meet with the senior most lawyer, whose name I got from the Martindale-Hubbell directory at the public library. When you come back for the third time in six weeks folks get pretty intrigued.

With the Internet and the social networking sites being used by lawyers and law firms you have a lot of tools at your disposal. More than lawyers have ever had in their efforts to get a job.

Best of all, your competitors will be waiting for a job to land in their lap, not demonstrating preparation, passion and perseverance by networking and knocking on doors through the Internet.