In the past few months I have heard many business owners and C-level execs tell me that their social media is being handled in-house. "That's great!" I tell them and then I ask who is responsible for it. Here we go... An intern. An assistant. The marketing department. The receptionist. Human resources. A manager. Customer service reps. The folks in IT. I could keep going.

My first thought is that those companies who want to keep it in house but don't want to pay a strategist give the responsibilities to the first person they come across with a little time on their hands, or someone they've overheard chatting out their Facebook page. My second thought is that anyone who is hiring for any position right now is looking for candidates who also have a little online marketing experience. So on Friday I conducted a little research of my own - a survey of Craigslist job postings over the last 30 days, looking for the employer's remedy to the social media issue.

First stop Maine. A quick search brings up 2 positions that require some sort of social networking background - a writer and a web guru.
Second stop, Alaska (why not, right?) One job, a nonprofit development director.
Onto Vermont. 1 Public relations, 1 position created to be solely dedicated to social communications and 4 agency positions.

Austin. 22 Jobs. 4 with an agency, 3 Content writers or PT bloggers, 5 in a company's marketing department, 2 sales assistants, 1 SEO Manager, 6 web designers, 1 customer service rep, and 1 intern. And then there was one company that was searching for a legal secretary that wanted you to forward your social networking profiles along with your resume.

This is the point where I realized that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Chicago listed 68 job postings that contained a SM requirement; 10 of these were for interns. Boston seeks 112 job candidates this month with SM skills, 20 of which are interns.

Los Angeles - 205 jobs posted that require SM know-how; 38 for interns only.
And my favorite, NYC - where there was over 750 jobs posted that contained the term "social media" in the job description - for FRIDAY ONLY. This is crazy!! Ten of the 700+ were for office assistants. More than 40 were for Business development or Sales. Less than 20 were looking for web producers.
Sorry interns - only 54 of them were for you. On Friday. You might have more luck to check in on a Monday. Or quite possibly a Wednesday.