“Was thinking that if each of us helped just 1 person find a job, we could start making a dent in unemployment. You game?”

He had a lot of followers on Twitter, most of whom were experts in the human resources sector, and the response was immediate and positive. Soon after that initial post, he came up with the name JobAngels. That was on January 29. Today, 11 days later, there are more than 1,000 followers on the group’s Twitter page, an article on About.com by Alison Doyle (the job search expert there), along with groups on both Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as, I’m guessing, many other blog postings.

On Twitter, the group welcome people to find someone to help out (which I’m researching now) and to submit a Tweet about themselves if they’re looking for work (which I did today). I have no idea how much I’ll be able to help other people or if I’ll get any responses to my posting. And while, sure, it would be great if something did happen, I’m more inspired by the fact that one person was able to start something of a mini-movement simply by one message to a group of people. That’s the beauty of social networking and Web 2.0 in general. A community of people from across the country or around the world, each of whom is willing and hopefully able to help others out, especially in a time of need.

Having been unemployed since mid-November, I know what it’s like. Inspiration is tough to come by these days. It’s easy to let yourself get down, especially when you read the news stories about all those unemployed people. That’s why it was so refreshing to find out about this group. I’m really hoping I’ll be able to help some people out, because I can say from experience that every little bit counts. And it’s such a wonderful opportunity to help, too.

If you can, please join JobAngels and help spread the employment love.