The 5 Tenets of Career Enlightenment - CareerEnlightenment.com

3. Its not the tool, its how you use itWhen my daughter was learning tennis, she would blame her racket for missing the ball. So we got her a better racked and she still missed the ball. Eventually, she learned that it wasnt the racket at all, it was how she was using it.You can read all the books and blog posts you want about LinkedIn, Twitter or even generic career books and resume books. But you need to learn how to really use them so that you can focus on more important things, like getting a job.Get familiar with the various social media tools at your free disposal. Learn to use them correctly and then move on. Social media is NOT a fad, its a rising trend just like email was in 1999. Better get used to it.4. Social Media is a feature, not a paradigm shiftTwitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are features of a much larger thing. Wouldnt it be silly to write an essay in MS Word, then use a separate software to correct your spelling?Use the internet tools together in a single career stra tegy. Dont think of the different social media tools as separate. Yes, they are their own companies. But they serve a single function in your life, connection.For example, why not apply to a job on a job board, follow up using LinkedIn for an info interview and then thank the person for their time on Twitter?Generic how to use social media for the job search articles just dont cut it any more. Focus on your strategy, rather than the tactics and tools. Eventually, I hope, the use of social media will become so familiar that any mention of them will simply recede into background noise.5. If at first you dont succeed, do something differentThe definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results each time.In Seth Godins, The Dip, he talks about knowing when its time to quit something or when you should stick to it. One of the factors of knowing when to quit is when youve used up every alternative to pursuing the goal.If youve been running your jo b search the same way over and over again without success, rather than feeling like you should give up, try changing one of the variables.If a particular networking group doesnt seem to pan out, choose another one. If your LinkedIn profile isnt getting people to write back to you, change it. If your time allocation is spent too much on research and not enough time in talking with actual people, change it.You may not always be in control of your time, but you are always in control of your energy.