Yahoo Layoff and the Twittering Employee

Ryan Kuder was recently laid off from Yahoo like lots of others across the world (even in India). However, what makes his case different is that as his day progressed he was twittering and his personal experiences were shared by lots of people across the world.

Today he has a blog post up sharing the experiences and the implications such kinds of social media has on people's realities. All the best Ryan, may you find your next dream job soon!

Somehow, someone with a blog that had more than a hand full of readers found my tweets. Henry Blodget excerpted my day on Silicon Alley Insider. That story hit the top of Techmeme by Tuesday night. Yesterday, my layoff was on the front page of the LA Times print edition and it was reprinted in today's Merc. I started Tuesday with 87 followers on Twitter. By Wedensday night, I had over 400. We're just a few shy of 500 now. Hopefully one of you is hiring ;)

I certainly didn't expect all of this when I got laid off. But the way I see it, the more people who know I'm out there looking, the more likely I am to get a job. And so far, the response from friends, colleagues, and total strangers has been amazing. Thanks for the emails, the tweets, the LinkedIn invites, and the Facebook messages.

The most interesting thing about all of this to me as someone involved in social media has been the way that news or content travels virally across the web. Someone found something interesting that they thought worth sharing, and then so did the next guy. I think it's an interesting case study, especially for me as a marketer, to watch things spread like this.

I think it's also a great way to look at how a job search can happen today. It used to be emails and phone calls to everyone you knew. With Twitter, there's been a bit of a different spin. I can keep anyone who is interested in the loop on how my hunt is going. And I've got a network of nearly 500 people out there who can feed me leads. And it's been working so far. I've got a meeting with an entrepreneur at lunch today and am having lunch with a Twitter friend on Friday. The response from recruiters and hiring managers has been great too.

What are you doing to embrace this sometimes scary mostly exciting new media?