Ploymint

Indeed. Monster. CareerBuilder. Chances are you’ve had your resume on these sites since college graduation, and have nothing but frustration to show for it. Huffington Post recently published an article which lists five sites for job seekers to find high-paying jobs, but are these sites really that fruitful for millennials?

The Downside of Most Job Sites

Most job sites are essentially job marketplaces. Employers get leads (applicants) and make an offer to the one who best fits their needs. This system can work good for older millennials who have the work experience to look enticing on paper, but what about the entry-level millennial?

The employers who advertise on these kind of job boards generally have traditionalist views when it comes to looking for employees. They highly value the resume. Their recruitment strategy is about you on paper, not you as a person. That happens at the interview stage. To put it bluntly, these companies don’t want millennials. You shouldn’t settle for a company unless they value what millennials have to offer.

LinkedIn: The Job Site Made for Millennials

In my opinion, the job site in the Huffington Post article that is truly made for millennials is LinkedIn. Millennials are maestros of Social Media and digital-image management. If you’re still checking Facebook and Instagram every hour once you get out of college, you’re just longing for the glory days of college. You can’t relive Rush Week of fall semester junior year over again, no matter how many #TBT pics you see of your roommate passed out drunk outside the dining hall. Trust me. I’ve tried.

If you get smart about Social Media in your job hunt, you’ll realize you need to be spending your time building your network on LinkedIn. My new boss once told me “Your Network is your Net Worth,” an I think that perfectly sums up the value of networking. I find it ironic that some millennials say they HATE networking in professional settings, yet they have thousands of friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. All you have to do is take your Social Media behaviors and tweak them a bit for LinkedIn’s professional domain.

So in short, just do what you do on Facebook. Instead of sharing articles like “10 Best Cat Memes,” share recent articles pertaining to your field. Instead of going off on a rant about your relationship, write a well-thought argument on one of your field’s hot-button topics. Post things that would impress potential employers.

One of the great things about LinkedIn is it promotes connecting with people you don’t know at all. Have you ever gotten a friend request from someone you don’t know on Facebook? Kind of creepy, right?  On LinkedIn, it’s best-practice to make these connections. Sending a request to connect with a personalized message attached to the hiring manager of a company can be the difference between getting an interview and having your resume lost in a sea of white paper.

Have you had luck finding a job through LinkedIn? What about another job site? We would love for you to share your strategies with our readers!