As the year ends making way for a the New Year, the social media showdown heats up for the few job openings on the market. For starters, more and more job seekers are opting for the greener pastures that social media sites promise. Conversely, traditional job boards and job search engines are struggling to hold onto the inevitable change in tide towards social media networking. So what's driving the mass exodus? Well for one thing social media networking is people oriented, whereas job boards and job search engines are object oriented (no pun intended). People prefer to engage with other people - especially where gainful employment is concerned. Moreover, job seekers are fed up with some job boards publishing meritless job postings with the sole intent of collecting resumes that simply get sold or otherwise included in a resume database somewhere.

Job Search social media networking, also, tends to be promising due to the concept of real time web search. Nowadays, a tweet job search via twitter will reveal what's going in the job networking world for a given skill set right now...as opposed to a job posting that's 10 or 15 days old. The same concept applies to LinkedIn and Facebook, job seekers can connect with employers real time with respect to current job openings or upcoming employment opportunities. A huge plus for employers is that even if a job seeker prospect doesn't appear to be a good fit, the employer can ask for a referral from the declining job seeker which most job seekers will happily provide. On top of that, most of time employers can obtain a referral simply for the asking, without traditional big ticket referral fees. So while there may only be a few job openings at the moment, the social media showdown between Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook heats up as the New Year approaches. You can expect the intensity to pick up as we cross over into the New Year which some seem to think will be a rather busy time for hiring. While the verdict is still out on how much hiring will happen, it's no secret more and more jobs will be networked through social media.

The scarce job market has prompted job search creativity for many job seekers, including mining Twitter tweets in the quest to find a job. The big question is whether or not it's that simple as tuning in to a few tweets and landing the next gig. Well, as is the case with everything else, sometimes people tend to oversimplify situations; such is the case with Twitter tweet mining. The reality is that mining Twitter for job leads is an investment in time and energy just like anything else. So establishing realistic expectations and targeting job related tweets best positions job seekers for landing a job using Twitter.

So what's the profile for job seekers that will undoubtedly be successful with Twitter tweet mining?

1. Socialites - the ones that are open and like to chat with and meet new people.
2. Less is More - small businesses account for more than 50% of hiring - so who should you be targeting?
3. Persistence - jobs are few and far between which means you might have to put in a little time before the results come. Sorry the instant gratification mentality won't work here.

Since "time is money," quite often its smarter to leverage tools and services that save you the time and grunt work, so you can get back to work sooner versus later. Real Tweets is an invaluable tool for mining Twitter job leads in the quest for gainful employment. Who wants to spend Christmas penniless and explaining to their girlfriend why it wasn't possible to get that shiny new tennis bracelet? Good luck with that one buddy. Being broke on Christmas is not cool, nor is sleeping with the dog on Christmas. Avoid the unnecessary punishment, mining Twitter tweets to find a job is best accomplished with Real Tweets. Moreover, if you get to work now you just might get a pay check before Christmas!

If you live in the Dallas area and are looking for change than you might need to look at K-C. That's right K-C (Kimberly-Clark) is hiring well over 100 positions. The Company's headquarters is in Dallas, TX but positions are open in quite a few states besides Texas. A snapshot of some of the job openings include:

1. Process Engineer IV
2. Senior Brand Manager
3. Electrical Engineer
4. Mechanical Engineer
5. Commercial Program Manager
6. Senior Paralegal
7. Numerous Co-Op positions

In the event you aren't familiar with K-C, the Company is well known for their line of paper products dubbed as innovative i.e. Kleenex, Scott Tissue, Viva paper towels and Huggies. Those are the more popular consumer line of tissue products. You may not know that the K-C also has a line of health care products for health care professionals. So, as a job seeker, why should you care? One word - stability! K-C is a very stable company with nearly $20 Billion in sales for 2008. How does K-C manage to stay stable during this economic turmoil? Well Kimberly-Clark is mostly into consumer necessity products as mentioned above. Think about it - money is tight and jobs are scarce but what are you going to do - cut back on Kleenex or Scott tissue for the Publix/Kroger brand - even worse cut back for the no name brands? No hardly. Try explaining to the wife and kids why they need to pull together to use the no name brand tissue and paper products that fall apart when you touch them, just to say a buck or two. Don't expect a lot of support with that idea buddy.

Besides having high quality consumer necessity products, K-C simply is a well sought after place to work. Why? Well two things stick out for me. The first being that K-C gives back quite a bit to the communities that support the Company such as with the Kimberly-Clark Foundation which pony-ed up $1.5 million for student scholarships via the Bright Futures scholarship program. The second factor that makes K-C an attractive workplace is that one of its core values & principles is none other than - "fair dealing." That one goes a long way in terms of looking out for employees. Perhaps if other companies focused a little more on "fair dealing" than the unemployment line wouldn't be as long as it is now. In short, Kimberly-Clark is hiring in Dallas and various other states from coast to coast. Thus, if you're looking for a career change and a company that understands social responsibility, K-C job openings is where you should be looking. What are you waiting on? The story is over.