Everybody — including job seekers, recruiters, marketers — is jumping on them, trying to get a piece of the action in the midst of a chaotic jumble. Sometimes you scoop up a new job lead or connect to a promising candidate. Or you come up empty-handed and a little bruised.

Some recent bits of data to consider:

• 51% of online U.S. adults utilize social networking sites (Forrester Research survey)
• 36% of job seekers have used at least one social networking site to help find a job (Yahoo! HotJobs poll)
• 80% of companies use or are planning to use social networking sites to fill vacant positions (Jobvite survey)

Hiring pros recently shared their insights about social networking sites as part of the Yahoo! HotJobs Recruiter Roundtable. It’s no surprise that they differ in their usage of the sites and in their opinions about effectiveness.

“It is important to remember that all of these technologies simply enhance the job search; they will never replace the face-to-face connections that are critical to a successful search,” says John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Why stay on the sidelines? With careful execution, you can position yourself to get more rewards than bruises from piling on.

Challenger’s firm offers these tips that job seekers can use on social networking sites:

* Advertise your job loss. Telling “followers” that you are looking for a job can be not only therapeutic, but also incredibly useful to finding a new position. Hundreds of recruiters are on Twitter and have no problem following your tweets.

* Build your brand. Start a blog discussing industry trends as you see them. Include discussions about your work, and tweet about your blog — as well as other industry developments.

* Join groups. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Yahoo! Groups allow users to create and join professional groups. This is a great way to build contacts and communicate with others in your field.

You can find more tips in these articles:

• Hiring Pros Share Insights About Social Networking Sites
• Social Networking Basics for Job Hunters
• Tweet Your Way to a New Job

Unlike past years, the pool of candidates for these jobs this year will include workers who have been unemployed for months or who are involuntarily underemployed.

To land a seasonal job, you’ll have to be resourceful, persistent, and resilient. Here are some tips for standing out from the competition:

1. Start early, and stay in the hunt. It’s always good to get a jump on the competition by getting your resumes or applications in early.  But if you hear that ‘Employer A’ (where you really want to work) isn’t hiring as of mid-November, that may change by early December.  Check back. Some retailers especially may be hanging back, reluctant to add staff until they see evidence that consumers are buying this holiday season.

2. Do some legwork in addition to online searching. Many employers may not take the time to post these positions online, so keep your eyes peeled for “help wanted” signs at local retailers or other possible companies in your area that you’ve targeted in your search.  Go into the businesses or stores and ask if they are hiring for seasonal help.

3. Network.  Get the word out about your job search to the people you know, and ask if they have suggestions for where else you might look. People are often open to helping others during the holidays, and the same is true for your contacts.

4. Be at-the-ready. Especially if you are inquiring in person about jobs, make sure that your appearance is interview-worthy, as you may be screened on the spot. Also have copies of your resume with you, as well as a pen or any other documentation that might facilitate your hiring.

5. Look beyond retail. Retail outlets are not the only sources for holiday jobs. Consider other employers in your area that may be connected to shipping, warehouse operations, or hospitality and catering.

6. Be flexible. The whole point of many of these seasonal jobs is that employers are adding extra hours or filling in gaps, so you should be versatile in terms of the hours and type of work that you can do. Reflect on your transferable skills and play them up. Flexible candidates will have an advantage!  Make sure you know your boundaries, of course, but then be willing to adapt as necessary.

7. Stay positive.  A positive attitude is critical for all job seekers today.  Being positive and confident will obviously be important for seasonal jobs that have direct contact with customers. But your attitude will register with everyone who is hiring, regardless of the job’s duties.  It’s easy to get discouraged in this job market, so make sure you are doing what you can to engage with your support networks and recharge your batteries.

See this “holiday hiring forecast” article for more on the outlook for this year.

But that dominant view — “you have to capture a recruiter’s attention within seconds or else” — ignores others who might assess your resume.

For example, an executive acting as the hiring manager will spend much more reading time — an average of 6 minutes — with each resume. That statistic emerged in a recent survey of senior executives by staffing firm OfficeTeam.

Granted, most of those managers have a smaller stack to read through than the  recruiters who narrow down the pool first with their screenings.

Other cases, however, may not involve humans at all. The first screening could be done by a software program that looks for keywords among your skills and experiences that match the job description.

Know Your Audience

“Job seekers need to keep in mind three audiences when crafting their resumes: keyword-scanning software, recruiters, and hiring managers,” says Robert Hosking, executive director of OfficeTeam. “The first two will be looking for keywords and requirements that match the job listing.  But the last group will be looking carefully for applicants’ key accomplishments in previous roles.”

He adds that managers are taking more time to avoid costly hiring mistakes in this tight economy, and to reduce the number or hours needed for in-person interviews.

Getting Their Attention

Hosking recommends these simple tips for writing your resume to stand out:

Get off to a good start. Be specific and concise when describing past accomplishments and highlight these achievements up front. This allows an employer to clearly recognize how you can impact the company’s bottom line.

Tailor the content. Customize your resume so it speaks directly to a potential employer’s needs — mirror the language and keywords found in the job description.

Keep it simple. Refrain from using complicated language, graphics or distracting fonts that can make the resume difficult to read.

He also suggests asking a friend or family member to do a “two-minute test” on your resume. Have them read the resume in two minutes and summarize for you the key points.  Also have someone else proofread your resume for typos and errors.

More Resume Resources

You can find many other useful tips in these articles:

• Recruiters Offer Hints for Following Up
• Great Resume Beginnings: Objective or Summary?
• ‘Accomplishments’ to Leave off Your Resume

A hiring helper?

A recent survey of hiring professionals put social networking sites — such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter — as the second-most effective job-search tool, behind [old-fashioned?] networking. Internet job boards ranked next, with newspaper classifieds and job fairs at the bottom of the list, according to the survey by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

However, another survey of health-care recruiting professionals found that social networking sites brought in a very small number of external hires, compared with print and job-board postings. The research, released this summer by Shaker Recruitment Advertising & Communications, put social networking sites in last place, with 75% of respondents calling the category “not applicable” for recent external hires.

Maybe the perception hasn’t caught up with reality in many hiring departments?

More mixed messages

For job seekers, similar disparities exist, so it’s hard to gauge how much energy to devote to social networking site strategies. In a recent poll on Yahoo! HotJobs, only 36% of site visitors said they had used LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter for help in finding a job.

Younger job seekers are using the sites most for job hunting, but the strategy hasn’t been very effective. Recent college grads rated social networking sites last in terms of effectiveness for getting a job, even though 80% used the sites for job searches. Job boards ranked highest. (For more on this, see the analysis at Cheezhead.com)

The bottom line is simple: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Social networking sites can be extremely helpful, but don’t overlook the benefits of job boards, niche sites, print classifieds, and, especially, general networking.

Here are some good resources that can help job seekers with making good use of social networking sites:

• Social Networking Basics for Job Hunters
• Tweet Your Way to a New Job 
• 8 Little-Known Trick for the Job Hunt

Whatever you do, don’t ignore this open frontier of opportunity. To borrow a rallying cry from the Village People, “Go West!”

Be flexible. You may have to look outside your industry, your town, your salary range in order to find a job today. You may have to take a job that is more junior than you would like. But once you get in the door, you can demonstrate your skills and move up — or move out when the economy gets better.

Be special. With more than five job seekers for every advertised job listing online, you’ve got to be competitive. One way to do this is to identify what gives you unique value to an employer, based on your individual achievements. Then make sure you communicate that well on your resume, in interviews, and in your 20-second “elevator speech” that you might use at networking events.

Be positive. First impressions are so important in hiring decisions, so you need to project confidence and a positive attitude. This may be more challenging for people who have been job-hunting full-time for weeks or months, as rejections chip away at your attitude. Do all you can to engage your support systems and find inexpensive recreational outlets — whatever it takes to recharge your batteries. You won’t get hired without a positive attitude.

I also did a video segment on CNN.com that night on “How to Find a Job,” which you can watch by clicking here.

Billboard Yields Offers

Mark Heuer, the guy who rented a billboard in Milwaukee for a month, says that he got three job offers from his investment. He also got plenty of media attention, which connected him to a supportive network of people struggling through unemployment.

Heuer started a new job at the beginning of June as director of client experience for Home Instead Senior Care. The job is not one of the three offers that came as a result of his billboard.

“In the end it came down to sheer networking, even though the billboard did work in uncovering an unpublished opportunity,” he says.

After seven months of unemployment, Heuer recommends networking as the best method for finding a job today. But he still encourages job seekers to be creatively unusual.

“The billboard worked even though I did not choose the opportunities,” he says. “I suggest car wraps, bus wraps, billboards, or even yard signs to plant in front of decision-makers’ windows at their offices.”

Husband Still Looking

Robin Stearns tried a novel approach to help her husband Mike find a job after 10 months of looking: She started the site MyHusbandNeedsaJob.com.

The homepage shows her holding a big sign that says, “Hire my husband.” But nobody has yet, as of mid-June.

A 2008 MBA graduate of Georgetown, Mike says he still does a great deal of networking, which he says is “the most effective way to job search.” His efforts include attending career fairs and volunteering.

Like Heuer’s billboard, the site garnered plenty of attention around the world. “Unfortunately we’re not the only ones in this [unemployed] situation, and it’s been nice to hear so many stories of others struggling through this with us,” Mike says.

Would he do anything differently? He says: “Knowing what I know now, I would have broadened my scope a lot earlier and expanded my search while I was in business school.

He encourages other job seekers to be creative, as well as effective. “Our website still focuses on my qualifications and resume, so all is not lost on the unique way we tried to market it.”

“Persistence and patience are the key,” he adds. “And network, network, network!”

Looking for a job today is serious business. It’s a job in itself, and you need to take it seriously in order to succeed.

Fortunately, the experts at Robert Half International have put together the 10 best strategies that every job seeker should pursue. The full article is posted on Yahoo! HotJobs, but here are three of the wise tips (in no particular order):

* Leave your comfort zone. Don’t limit your search to your current industry or field. Expand your horizons by focusing on your transferable skills.

* Be flexible. Remaining open to all possibilities is essential in a challenging economy. Don’t overlook a position even if the job title, salary, or benefits may not be exactly what you hoped for.

* Manage your digital footprint. With a few mouse clicks, potential employers can dig up information about you on blogs, personal websites and networking sites. As you look for employment, keep tabs on your online reputation to make sure there is no information about you on the Web that could affect your professional reputation.

For the full, informative top 10 list, click here.

For a fun diversion, check out the Top 10 archive from the “Late Show with David Letterman.”

Not surprisingly, medical jobs were among the highest-paid. Surgeons topped the list ($206,770), followed by anesthesiologists ($197,570) and orthodontists ($194,930).

Bottom three: Combined food-prep and service workers ($17,400), fast-food cooks ($17,620), and dishwashers ($17,750). The rewards for being a barista or “sandwich artist” are definitely more than monetary.

But now a new contest offers one VERY lucrative food-service job: Scooping ice cream. You could make $100,000 in one day — courtesy of Edy’s Grand Ice Cream.

Who wouldn’t want to make $100K in a single day of work? Whether you’re a foodie or not, employed or not, this sounds as irresistible as a triple-scoop waffle cone on a hot summer day. The promotion coincides with the 80th birthday of Edy’s Rocky Road, a flavor that gave people something to smile about during the Great Depression.

The contest involves writing about how you would use the $100K salary to fulfill your American dream. For more details, check out www.icecream.com and follow the “Taste of Recovery” links.

Q	Have you used Twitter for help with a job search?
Yes	8%
No	92%
5226 Votes to date

Many Twitter users have found enterprising ways to learn about available jobs and contact recruiters. It’s a tool worth exploring. I use Twitter as a way to share tips about job searching and career issues; you can follow me at HotJobs_editor.

Check out this blog post for more tips on using Twitter for your job search.

Typos and other simple errors are very, very common in resumes. Ask any recruiter.

“There is nothing worse than receiving a cover letter addressed to a different person in a different company, misspellings of my name or my company name, or obvious errors in a resume,” says Lindsay Olson of Paradigm Staffing. “I receive resumes and cover letters like this daily, and it is hard for a recruiter to stand by their candidate if so little precaution and attention to detail has been given prior to hitting the send button.”

Hearing about your error from a beleaguered recruiter has got to be as fun as having a friend thank you for a 40th birthday card after he or she just turned 38.

A few tips for catching your resume errors:

• Spell-check, using the automatic tool that comes with Word.
• Proofread more than once. If possible, leave a few hours between readings to allow yourself distance. This will help in spotting errors.
• Have a friend read it over. You don’t need a cracker-jack copy editor, just another pair of attentive eyes.

Don’t let simple errors on a resume ruin your chances of landing the job! For more tips, see “Worst Resume Bloopers.”