Be sure to connect your online profiles. Your Facebook profile, for instance, should link to your LinkedIn résumé, and vice versa. Next, notify your colleagues and friends that you're looking for work. If you're a Twitter user, tweet your professional (e.g., LinkedIn) profile to your followers. "That directs people back to a page where they can see everything you want them to know about you professionally," says Luo.

If you do link your social and professional profiles, however, it's prudent to purge photos or comments that may raise a potential employer's eyebrow. Facebook users, for instance, may want to delete potentially offensive party pics or profanity-laced shout-outs from friends.

New Tips for Job Boards

This isn't to say that job seekers shouldn't post their résumés on employment sites such as CareerBuilder, Monster, and Yahoo HotJobs, or check out the listings there. But when applying for a job, don't simply add your résumé to the applicant slush pile. Instead, try leveraging your social network to gain a competitive edge.

Say, for instance, that you're searching Monster and you find an attractive opening at a company you'd like to work for. If your LinkedIn network includes someone who works at the company or who knows a person who does, you could ask that colleague for an inside introduction. "When you have a referral inside a company, that's the surest way to get your résumé in front of the right person," says Luo. To send messages to LinkedIn users outside your network, however, you'll have to upgrade to a premium account, which starts at US$25 a month.