Social Media Success Story: Finding a Job through your Network

Our friend Kim Connolly, @cvillekim on Twitter, vice president of Marketing & Communications with United Way-Thomas Jefferson Area, wrote me an email with the subject line: My Social Media Success Story.

This is actually YOUR success story, too. I went to your get-together at Commonwealth Skybar in lieu of the first cancelled Meet the Media Tweetup event. While there, I struck up a conversation with a young man, John Kowalski @theoriginaljage and learned that he had just graduated from VCU with a degree in media and communications and was looking for his first real-world job to get him started on his career. There was something about him I really liked, and I wished that I had an opening for him here. I did tell him he should widen his search to include nonprofits because of the opportunity to be flexible and creative and not relegated to some cubby in a bigger organization.

I invited him to come by the United Way the next week and we talked some more. I sent him some nonprofit marketing job listings and then saw an opening at the United Way in Fredericksburg for a Communications Coordinator that listed all his skill sets. I also saw from their staff list that this position was the only purely marketing position there. I sent him the job posting and told him it would be the perfect starter position. He did apply and I called their president to encourage an interview. Coincidentally, she had his resume open on her desk when I called, and told me he was in her “maybe” pile, but based on my referral, she would include him in her first round of phone interviews. Long story, short – he got the job!

All because of Twitter, and because of your Tweetup, which started the ball rolling.

We LOVE success stories like this — thank you Kim and best wishes in your new job, J.J. — we’ll be staying in touch with both of you!