Social websites give you an internet presence and show that you’re technically savvy, an important quality when you’re changing careers mid-career and beyond. Wikipedia lists 128 social networking websites worldwide and includes the disclaimer that the list is “limited to a few notable and well-known sites”. The ones I will review are among the largest or most relevant to the job search process.

Social networking sites give you a place to let people know about you on the web. One of the challenges for the person in mid-career and beyond is providing indisputable proof that they understand and use today’s technology. These sites can go a long way in proving that. This is also a great way to stay in touch with your network and build a wider one during your job search.

First, let’s get rid of those social networking sites that aren’t very helpful in your job search, the websites that are purely social or special interest. Such sites include such sites as Buzznet.com for people interested in music and pop culture (10,000,000) and CafeMom.com for moms and moms-to-be (1,250,000).

General interest social networking sites, on the other hand, provide both social and business contacts and communications. The most popular among them is MySpace.com with 403,000,000 registered users, followed by Facebook.com with 115,000,000. These are places to find old friends and colleagues and communicate with your own network about the progress of your job search campaign.

There are some special interest sites that could also be used for business. If you’re a photographer, you might want to have a presence on Flickr.com, while professionals with an African-American background can get some job search mileage by being on BlackPlanet.com.

Purely commercial social networking sites include LinkedIn.com with 25,000,000 users and Plaxo.com with 15,000,000. Both are aimed at the professional and are widely used within the business community. They allow each user to post a professional profile and photo. Plus, you can invite your network of contacts to join you so they can stay up to date on what each other is doing and make business and job referrals. LinkedIn includes a job board, and Plaxo sends regular updates on member activity to the people they’re connected with.

Meetup.com, while technically a social networking site, is most valuable for the list of local meetups it sends out regularly. Be careful though, you may have to search through many irrelevant meetings to find the ones you are interested in attending as part of your job search drive. Reunion.com is useful for finding contact information for people you went to school or college with.

As the number and size of social networking sites increases daily (if not hourly), they are here to stay as part of the job search process.