Your Digital Footprint

Managing Your Online Profile

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What is your digital footprint?

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Everything on the internet that isabout you.

What is Social Media?

Any online location where you share information about YOU: your activities, your attitudes, your achievements, your life or things you think will interest others.

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Activity:Which of the following are you using? Any others?

What are the implications for you and your organisation?

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Listen and Communicate

Stay Safe

ShowcaseAchievement

Understand social

responsibility

Use of social media can be both personal and professional at the same time – a blurring of traditional boundaries

Profilemanagement.weebly.com

"[for job seekers, regarding CVs]...there's a continuum from paper docs, online links to virtual profile. But must manage social media presence!“

Joe Billington, Director, National Careers Service 2013, via Twitter.

Reinforced in his Breakfast Television and BBC Radio5Live interviews.

Why Are We Interestedin Social Media?

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Social Media is increasingly being used by universities, recruitment agencies and companies to validate CVs and to get

a fuller picture of applicants’ lives.

Is what you claim on your CV true?

Are you a good cultural fit?

Will you prove to be an asset to the organisation?

Will you be an embarrassment?

Does this really happen in practice?

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OH YES!

Paris Brown “Twitter resignation” in Kent http://ow.ly/k7I1d Uni offer withdrawn due to drunken FB photos http://ow.ly/kbmfz

Frequent reports of employers unhappy with online comments

“Almost one in five technology industry executives say that a candidate’s social media profile has caused them not to hire that person.” 40% of the survey respondents from technology companies review job candidate’s profiles on social media sites.

A Professional Business

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Social media profiling is now formally embedded in recruitment processes.

“Now technology job site Dice aims to leverage that information into the ultimate recruiting tool... the tool combs through a

candidate's online social media presence in order to generate a comprehensive, and more personal, profile of the person a

company is considering hiring… the service will scour up to 50 different social networks” http://ow.ly/k7HRz

Activity 2First google yourself, then have a think about other online places where you leave information which can be seen by others.

Reasons to Take Care

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Beware of illegal file sharing and if you contribute to non-mainstream sites such as pornography then make sure there are no clues about your identity.

If you are really unlucky then your night out will revisit you! http://ow.ly/k7HMX

What Can I Do?

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Once information is exposed it can never be completely disappeared but don’t worry, not only is the situation retrievable but you can use social media to make a positive contribution towards your job hunt. What you need is a plan of action.

1. What MESSAGES you want to give potential employers.

2. What content do you want potential employers NOT to see?

3. What content do you want potential employers DEFINITELY to see?

Spring Cleaning

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Identify those social media over which you can control privacy. On FB for example use the padlock icon which enables you to choose to whom (to some extent) your information is exposed.

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Make a universal change to restrict access to only your friends.

Don’t forget that any comments you post on friends’ walls or resources are outside your control and may be visible for everyone to see. Photos you

hide from your timeline may still be seen via the Facebook search engine so use the tool to review what you have hidden and don’t forget comments

you may have posted in groups or on organisations’ pages.

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Don’t Do This

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Subtle Examples Of Bad

Apart from the plain embarrassing, of what should you be careful?•Typos – don’t write rubbish. Text speak in the appropriate places (eg Twitter) but don’t mix up the formal and informal.•Social Media Etiquette – don’t swear, write in caps or otherwise break with social media etiquette. •Incomplete Profile – bother. If it is worth being on a social media then do it well, complete your profile, include a photo of yourself. Remember to make it a photo that you don’t mind an employer seeing. Imagine that your grandmother is checking you out, what would she think? •Don’t neglect, delete – if a social media doesn’t add value to your life then delete your profile, otherwise it looks like you can’t be bothered.

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And Now The Good Stuff

Social media can be an enormous asset to your job search.•What do you want your social media profile to say? How to positively reinforce the messages you want to put over?•Make public information about your making things happen. Not only does it look good to the employer but may provide a useful conversation starter in the interview•Can you evidence your previous experience? If you want to work with animals then comment on or write an animal related blog or upload videos to YouTube of yourself working with animals – find ways to support your case, employers want the hire to have minimum risk so let them feel they know you. •Contribute to Wikipedia?•Cross link between profiles, for instance link from YouTube to your blog and LinkedIn profile to manage what potential employers see

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More Good Stuff

Social Media tips to boost your job search – ways to boost your profiles for employers• A photo of you accepting an award – you look like a winner! • A photo of you doing volunteer work – you look generous• A photo of you crossing the finish line of a 10k race – you look energetic• A photo of you with colleagues – you look like you play well with others• Logos of brand name former employers• Links to articles and other web pages relevant to your chosen industry or profession• Links to videos showing you speaking to a group• News about interesting projects you’re working on• Short blurbs about books or films you’re reading• Make a list of companies you might want to work for and “like” them

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Make Your Presence Felt

Activity 3Think what messages are you trying to get across and how you can use social media to positively reinforce them.

What you say is important, but just as important is how you say it. Here are some tips:

Make your presence felt – if it is worth being on social media then it is worth using it well. Develop connections on LinkedIn or work to generate interest in your YouTube video by using other appropriate places to encourage people to view it. Don’t be too pushy (unless you are pitching for a job in sales) but make sure that potential employers know that you contribute actively and are not a lurker.

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Show Your Understanding

Display your knowledge of social media – a lot of organisations positively value social media awareness. Approach your social media presence professionally and have some accounts where you stick to themes relating to your chosen job search, even if it is just retweeting (or sharing) interesting newspaper articles. Not everyone with will have read them first time round.It is impressive if you can tell the employer you have a lot of followers for an account, especially if it relates to your chosen line of work.Above all, whatever the subject, approach your non-private chosen media professionally, for example using hash tags for Twitter and update regularly but don’t spam.

#photoofth

eday

#footballinsolvency

#mufc

#drwho

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Are You Getting It Right?

One of the best things about social media is that there are plenty of free ways to measure success

Facebook Friends – try to strike a balance, don’t have too few or too many, perhaps somewhere between 50 and 150 makes you look popular whilst not appearing desperate. A manageable number of friends make it is less likely that private information will leak

LinkedIn connections and Twitter Followers – have as many as possible but they need to be relevant. Recently a candidate failed to get a job because the employer was unimpressed by the identity of their Twitter followers!

Effective use of LinkedIn

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Effective use of Twitter

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Ways to Check Up

Quality and quantity – use Klout or other online calculators to measure your social media influence, if you have a good score then why not include it and other information about you social media presence in your CV? It shows initiative, an ability to use technology and that you actively contribute to communities.

Reputation Services – there are plenty of free services which measure aspects of your reputation Newsle keeps an eye on your contacts’ social media activity so you can compare your progress or impress a potential employer by knowing about their recent activity.

Google – one of the best ways to find out what other people can easily see about you!

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Show Your Understanding

Display your knowledge of social media – a lot of organisations positively value social media awareness.

Approach your social media presence professionally and have some accounts where you stick to themes relating to your chosen profession. Even if it is just retweeting newspaper articles about your areas of interest. Not everyone with an interest will have read them first time round. Similarly if you are looking for an office based role then share interesting information on LinkedIn.

It is very impressive if you can tell the employer you have a lot of followers for a Twitter account especially if it relates to your chosen line of work.

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Checklist

Identify the social media in which you appear

Decide the messages you want to give to potential employers

Spring clean

Add appropriate access controls

Delete inappropriate material

Generate and promote positive material

Check whether aggregators are useful for you

Keep reviewing/monitoring your presence

Measure your influence

Why not add social media activities to your CV?

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Harvard

If you want to find out more then check out how Harvard University recommend their academics manage their search and social media profiles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JxS3VBmvoA