Resumes, like everything else, evolve and change as our needs change. Technology more than anything else is rapidly transforming how we search for jobs and how we apply for jobs. Recently, many of these changes have to do with the influx of social media channels – for both job seekers and employers. Due to these changes, what worked ten, five, and even one year ago for your resume may no longer work for you in today’s job market.

It is essential to stay on top of the latest social media trends; the job seeker that embraces and utilizes social media will have a huge advantage over those that don’t. A savvy job seeker will use social media to promote their personal brand, unique qualities, and professional value.

It has become more and more common, even standard, to include your LinkedIn profile address on your resume. This makes sense because LinkedIn is a social media site geared strictly to career professionals. But what about the other sites? You know the ones: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, MySpace (is that even still around?) and many others. Seems like there is a new social media site every day. The questions is, should you use these social media sites on your resume? And if you do, what is the most effective way to apply them?

So, how can you apply social media strategies to your resume for the best results? If you will be promoting your social media presence on your resume it is absolutely crucial that those social media sites are strictly professional. For example, if you have a twitter account but use it for personal “tweeting” you would not want to include this on your resume. However, if you use twitter to keep up to date on changes in your profession and to contribute as a resource in your industry then it may be relevant.

It’s important to remember, though, that even if you don’t include a Facebook profile address on your resume, that doesn’t mean a potential employer won’t check it out anyway. If you post something on the internet, whether it's a picture, video, content, etc., it becomes public domain and may be used by a potential employer in evaluating your candidacy, meaning that the YouTube video you posted might not be so funny after all.

Your online presence contributes to your personal brand so you need to take care in what you put out there. However, if you effectively promote your brand using a variety of online resources such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs, websites, etc. you can market yourself as a leader in your industry.

If social media is part of your job search and you have used some of the above mentioned sites in a professional and responsible way and feel that they add to the overall picture of who you would be as an employee feel free to include them to your resume. This can give an employer another view to consider and may provide that little bit of extra insight and advantage over the applicant that didn’t use social media. By becoming familiar with these resources and emerging technologies you can stay one step ahead of the competition.