The grass-roots movement, which is growing quickly on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, promises to give a boost not only to out-of-work individuals but also companies eager to do more with less, says Dan Kilgore, a recruiting consultant with Riviera Advisors who has watched the JobAngels momentum build. Kilgore has noticed professional recruiters becoming Angels, which means corporations should find job openings easier to fill.

Companies “now have free agents working on their behalf,” he says.
JobAngels dates to January, when Washington-based HR consultant Mark Stelzner suggested that each of the 700 people following him on micro-blogging site Twitter help just one person find a job.

“The response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive,” Stelzner said in a blog post. He proposed the name JobAngels and the group began to take off.

In early April, the JobAngels Twitter site had more than 6,200 followers. JobAngels also has a presence on social networking sites Facebook and LinkedIn.

It’s unclear how many jobs have been landed thanks to Angels, says Deirdre Honner, a JobAngels leader. But Honner, who also is associate director of human resources at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, can cite anecdotes of success, including the case of a person she helped get a job at Ohio State University.

It’s hard to help people find work today. The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent in March, the highest level since 1983. The number of job openings in February was 3 million, down nearly 30 percent from a year earlier.

Still, the volunteer leaders of JobAngels are pushing forward. A Web site is in the works that will provide various resources, such as a service to match job seekers with Angels in particular geographies and fields.

But just as Clarence stuck with the troubled Jimmy Stewart, Honner says JobAngels isn’t going to disappear.

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Source: Reprinted from www.workforce.com 5/7/2009  Ed Fraunheim.