Nowadays, a new generation of workforce with an emerging culture becomes known. The digital revolution enabled a new model of collaboration, which leads to better innovation and higher performance (Tapscott, 2014). As the process is now led by creativity, the new approach is more favourable for an online professional profile. But, as this video suggest, the challenge is to write what you do best in the right places (BBC, 2013). How can you make it count?
The digital revolution improved the employers’ approach on recruitment, changing the talent management system as shown above.
This infographic shows the massive role of social media in recruitment. 96% of the recruiters use social media and the number is probably greater for those who look at any aspect of the online professional profiles.
It also shows that the ‘professional social network’ LinkedIn is the most popular for recruitment purposes, but Facebook and Twitter are also a big part of it too. It’s surprising, considering their ‘unprofessional roots’. Thereby, our feeds are vulnerable when posting unsuitable content. Solutions for those who want to be very rigorous with the online privacy can be found here.
However, employers are still cautious when it comes to approaching candidates on social media. Invading this space seen as private with advertising, can feel like turning up at a university house party with a careers brochure (Noonan, 2017).
Recently, I tried to improve my online professional profile, part of my attempt to find a placement. I found some useful tips on the topic in this video. The second point: networking and being engaged with professionals from your industry, also emphasised by Snowdon’s article (2011) is the most important to me.
For the extra points in building the online professional profile, I think blogging is a great showcase. Even if it seems to be missing from the recruiters’ scanning, putting your blog forward shows passion, enthusiasm, dedication, and motivation (The Employable, 2014).
A success story is Barack Obama’s case. His administration made him one of the most influential people on the internet. This fact is still growing after the end of his mandate as his accounts were kept active. On Twitter, his posts from @POTUS were moved to @POTUS44 which became Obama’s ‘presidential archive’, with Trump taking over the first one.
But unsuitable content can also ruin you. See the unfortunate case of Justine Sacco.
All in all, authenticity can make your online professional profile count. By using LinkedIn along with other online platforms can make you convincing, but activities as blogging make you stand out. However, once established, your online professional profile can bring unexpected rewards.
437 words
Sources:
BBC (2013) BBC News: Job hunting: How to promote yourself online – BBC News. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25217962 [Accessed 12 March 2017].
Bogost, I. (2017) The Atlantic: Obama Was Too Good at Social Media. Available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/did-america-need-a-social-media-president/512405/ [Accessed 11 March 2017].
Forbes (2015) YouTube: How To Land A Job Using Social Media. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSPVHMoKFhU [Accessed 12 March 2017].
Jobvite (2015) The Jobvite Recruiter Nation Survey. Available from: https://www.jobvite.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/jobvite_recruiter_nation_2015.pdf [Accessed 11 March 2017].
Newman, J. (2015) Rolling Stone: Jon Ronson: Why We Should Forgive Justine Sacco. Available from: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/jon-ronson-why-we-should-forgive-infamous-tweeter-justine-sacco-20150331 [Accessed 11 March 2017].
Noonan, L. (2017) Ft.com: Deutsche Bank scours social media to find talent. Available from: https://www.ft.com/content/84bcb7de-d425-11e6-9341-7393bb2e1b51 [Accessed 12 March 2017].
Ronson, J. (2015) Nytimes.com: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=1 [Accessed 11 March 2017].
Snowdon, G. (2011) the Guardian: The rules of social recruiting. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/aug/19/rules-social-recruiting-linkedin-twitter-facebook [Accessed 12 March 2017].
Tapscott, D. (2014) World Economic Forum: Five ways talent management must change. Available from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/10/don-tapscott-talent-management-millennials/ [Accessed 12 March 2017].
The Employable (2014) TheEmployable: How blogging can help you get a job. Available from: http://www.theemployable.com/index.php/2014/10/28/blogging-can-help-get-job/ [Accessed 12 March 2017].
Trend Micro (2015) YouTube: Your Social Media Privacy Settings Matter – Trend Micro. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QukDatUM31U [Accessed 12 March 2017].
Andrei Angelescu 
Excellent blog once again Andrei I look forward to your content each week!
I found your title very different yet engaging. It didn’t directly address the question but it did draw attention and I felt as if I was constantly thinking about whether or not I am ‘making it count’ with my own personal social media accounts. I find it very difficult to keep all of my accounts ‘professional’ as I used the same social media accounts from when I created them. Thus, there are still pictures which are not necessarily ‘professional’ but still, do not want to delete as I consider them as memories. Would you consider all of your social media accounts as strictly professional?
Maybe you could have added in more in regards to how blogging could help in being professional online so this link might be an interesting read http://mashable.com/2013/06/01/blog-job/ but I understand you do not want to make it too text heavy.
Regards, Alex!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Alex,
Thank you lots for your nice comments! I’m glad that you resonated with the title!
I am on the same page with you regarding the social media accounts. On my Facebook profile for example – which was the first social media that I joined – I have really old pictures which represent nice memories, but I am not really keen to share them anymore, so I changed their privacy setting to ‘Only Me’.
I wouldn’t say that all my social media accounts are used strictly professional, but I am keen to say that their are ready to face the sometimes rough judgement of a recruiter. However, if I am asked to share one of my accounts with one of the companies that I am interested in, I would use the LinkedIn one.
About blogging, I wish I could include more in this post, but I was limited by word limit. However follow my future blogs, I’m planning to develop this argument in my following posts. I really enjoyed the article that you shared and I think the proof of know how to create and keep connections, both in the digital world and the real world is the most valuable for employers. That’s why I think a lot of people started to write articles on their LinkedIn accounts, some of them becoming viral!
Do you use LinkedIn? Have you thought about blogging on this platform in order to increase your connections network and to attract the attention of professional from your industry? I found this article quite interesting, it would be great to let me know what you think about it – http://blog.linkfluencer.com/how-to-write-a-linkedin-blog/
Best regards,
Andrei
LikeLike
Hey Andrei
That’s very good thinking in regards to changing pictures so that only you can see. However, what if your friends also wanted to look back on these memories but now they are unable to? It is very tricky trying to balance professionalism and your digital social life.
It’s interesting that you would share your LinkedIn profile to employers and I feel most people would share this one too as their overall purpose is to help with employment where as other social media websites such as Facebook are not designed for this purpose.
I do indeed have a LinkedIn account but it is not updated as I am not searching for a job right now and would not gain any satisfaction out of using this website in my free time. What account would you say provides you with the most satisfaction and how professional would you say you are on this account?
Your article about blogging on LinkedIn is very interesting and I may well start doing this when I’m searching for a job and updating my LinkedIn profile.
Thanks, Alex
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Alex,
I am definitely on the same page with you… Finding a balance in having an online professional profile can be very tricky. That’s why at the moment there is no certain ‘success path’ and it’s more about being flexible and adaptable.
From my personal experience, I strongly encourage you to use your LinkedIn profile more actively. Firstly, because it takes a while to build a well established connections network and once you build it, you can see it as an asset that you possess. Secondly, it can help you to connect with people from your industry of interest and maybe learn from their experience and guidance.
Thanks again for you comments!
With kind regards,
Andrei
LikeLike
Hi Andrei,
I must say all your embedded images, videos and infographics is what made this post such an enjoyable read! I particularly enjoyed the video you made on Justine Sacco as it was educated to us in a very different style rather than just adding an article link into your post. As mentioned in my previous blog post, I have my settings on private for personal social media accounts like Facebook, but I still found the video of solutions to online privacy very helpful!
After reading this article: http://techdelve.com/use-one-profile-picture-for-all-of-your-social-media-profiles/, do you agree that every social media should be kept professional? For example, I see Facebook as quite a personal account and my profile picture isn’t the same as my LinkedIn picture, do you think it would hinder my chances of being recruited for a job as it does not keep up with the consistency online profiles should have?
Also, to what extent would you agree that recruiters might find reading blogs too time-consuming especially if there isn’t any relevance to the job the candidate is applying to?
Carolina
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Carolina,
Thanks for taking the time to read my post and to comment on it! The article that you proposed in your comment was a very stimulating read. Gaining integrity and trust in your relationship with your employer is an important thing. However, I don’t consider this paragraph entirely true: “There is no such thing like, my this account will only be for presenting myself how cool I am to my friends/ buddies where I will post all the funky stuffs and my another profile is created by maintaining a professional layer, so that it reflects my professionalism”. I think that I mentioned previously that a personal brand can be supported by a strong online presence on more channels, and that is probably good practice example. Thereby, a consistent profile picture on LinkedIn, Twitter and other personal accounts can only help. Nevertheless, I believe that certain accounts can be used for purely personal purposes. A lot of celebrities are on Facebook and some of them have a personal profile that they use along with their official page, which is probably mainly managed by their public relations representatives. Thereby, if you are consistent to a certain level, I think it wouldn’t affect your chances in a recruitment process.
Your final question is very good and I assume that recruiters are quite reluctant when it comes to reading someone’s blog posts – probably that’s why the number of those who use blogging to assess candidate is this low… However, I believe that if you apply for a job that requires creativity, the effective use of visuals in your posts can be a huge asset that can make the difference between you and the other candidates. Furthermore, if you have a ‘full’ comments section and you replied to people’s thoughts, your recruiter will probably be even more impressed.
Hope that I answered all your questions, but if you have any more please feel free to ask!
Andrei
LikeLike