Social Media Strategy – Jim’s Story
This is the first of a multi-part story of Jim Adcock. I have known Jim for six years and now serve on the board of directors of Launch Pad Job Club. Jim is a classic example of someone who has learned to manage his career through a social media strategy.
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My name is Jim Adcock. I make a living as a SharePoint Consultant, and I make a difference as Vice President on the Launch Pad Job Club Board of Directors.
Over the last three years I have been actively using blogging as a key part of my career social media strategy, and found it to have been an important building block toward a successful and stable career.
In April of 2009, I got a chance to hear Jason Alba of JibberJobber.com fame, speak about his ideas about managing a career. While I had previously heard some of those ideas from others, he put it together in a way that finally got through to me.
The purpose of a career blog, as it was explained to me, is to create a portfolio of what you know, what you can do and how you can solve your (potential) employer’s problems.
In my particular case, I blog about SharePoint and how I use it to solve business problems for companies. I write about particular technical issues, and how I solved the problems. This provides a look at how I approach solving problems, both business and technical, and occasionally shows off how clever I am.
As a portfolio of job activities, it provides a way for employers to validate my experience, especially during those “Tell me about a time when…” questions. It provides a selection of code samples for employers to review. It provides a platform to advertise myself, to build some brand recognition for a brand that is very important to me… that brand is ME!
And it works. As an example, I went to a conference a few months ago, and the very first person I saw as i was walking in, a random stranger, came up to me and said, “Hey, you’re the guy with that blog!” (It helps that I have my picture featured prominently at the top of the page layout.)
Employers have contacted me after reading posts, employers that I would love to work for someday, just to tell me that they liked what I wrote, or that the post solved a problem they were struggling with.
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And, yes, all that work paid off. Blogging played an important role in getting my most recent job, as I discuss in a recent post.
But success like that doesn’t just happen on its own, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Next time, I’m going to talk about some of the things I do to make that success happen.
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