Today I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker at the Metropolitan New York College Career Planning Officers Association (MNYCCPOA) conference. My presentation on career branding tips using online identity and networking tools for job search generated some inciteful comments and questions from the audience. Here are a few of them:
- How do you keep the lines between business and social networking from becoming blurry? In a nutshell, you don’t. People want to hire people that they know and trust. By intelligently revealing a snapshot of your personal style on business networking sites you can actually strengthen business relationships. Insights on your personality may be gleaned from your status updates on LinkedIn or a creative Slideshare presentation that demonstrates the value you can bring to an employer. Microblogging sites like Twitter are perfect environments for revealing both professional and personal insights.
- What are some of the pitfalls to be aware of when using social media? Users should refrain from posting their full birthdays including the year on social networking sites, as doing so may make them more susceptible to phishing scams. If you are on a site with a public wall such as Facebook, audit comments on your wall regularly and delete any comments that you feel could be damaging if unearthed by a recruiter or hiring manager. Don’t post comments on Facebook or “tweets” on Twitter that could be construed as discriminatory or smug and don’t badmouth people or companies. And certainly don’t complain about your current job! Only post pictures that you are comfortable having anyone see and untag yourself from pictures if you think they may have a negative impact on you professionally.
- As LinkedIn becomes more and more popular, won’t it become increasingly more difficult to differentiate your candidacy on the site? I think that as LinkedIn continues to grow (it is currently at 39M members) job seekers will have to become increasingly more creative in how they present their qualifications. The specialties section of their profile will probably need to be vigilantly updated and perhaps there will be new applications available to further differentiate one’s candidacy. We may start seeing a migration to more specialized sites such as Ning where more private niche communities are created. Or maybe by then there will be a new business networking tool that some will switch over to. Hard to predict, but fun to ponder!
- Since no one can be on every online community, which do you recommend job seekers create a presence on? I think that where each job seeker needs to be is related to their specific networking goals. Each networking site has its own unique culture and job seekers should be cognizant of how consistent that culture is with the professional brand they are trying to promote. Currently I believe that LinkedIn is the top tool for business networking in a U.S. market. However, Xing and Ecademy have a strong hold with more global audiences. Twitter grew by 130% just last month and it is a site to consider having a presence on. The demographics of Facebook are changing rapidly with women over 34 being one of their fastest growing demographics and more and more people are leveraging Facebook’s functionality to enhance their job search. Students and recent grads should also check out Doostang and Affinity Circles to source job leads and build community.