You've no doubt heard a lot about using the Web, particularly so-called "social media," in your job hunt. But when it gets down to it, how useful are sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, even Twitter?

Farhad Manjoo, a tech writer for Slate, writes Monster.com.

That rule, of course, holds no matter how you network, whether you do it online or person-to-person the old fashioned way. Via social networks, you're more likely to hear about job opportunities before they go public on Monster , ArkansasBusiness.com/Jobs or even in the printed classifieds.

Engaging that network online allows these opportunities to spread faster, and that's the real secret to job hunting with social media.

Of course, the results for everyone will always be mixed. In talking to his admittedly geeky circle of friends, Manjoo found that job-hunting on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter paid off, while for others, efforts on those showed more promise than sending in résumés. Of course for some, social networking was a bust.

More case studies on using social media for the job hunt here , as well as thoughts on etiquette.

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