Topic 3: Reflection

Upon reflection of Topic 2 whereby I expressed deep concerns and strong views on the need to keep your personal and professional online identity separate, I have since through my own and subsequent reading of my colleagues work on Topic 3 come to the realisation that this is no longer possible nor helpful in anyway and to me is not accountable as an act of the creation of an authentic online professional identity. Oliver and I had a brief discussion about this on my blog post which first began the influence of my change in heart.

My comment on Charley’s post in which I drew the attention of Will’s post illustrates this too.  My point was also supported by the Justine Sacco case I touched upon in my blog post and the number of other cases in which Eloane neatly illustrated within her Infographic. For which reason I have decided I will be deleting my ‘personal’ online accounts thus creating transparency through my online identity allowing prospective employers to see the ‘real’ me.

In order to do this I will use the Infographic below to completely eradicate all stupid and nonsensical Tweets and Facebook posts I have done in the past which may have been hindering my chances of getting a grad job.

(Stampler, 2014).

Additionally, the YouTube video (I am sure you are all familiar with) below further exemplifies this.

(BBC News, 2017).

Furthermore, through reading Sharon’s blog post I was able to learn how to better develop my LinkedIn profile and have created an Infographic below to illustrate the subsequent changes I have made.

I also found Rachel and Scott’s post very informative and the comparison to Snapchat/ elevation pitch has also enabled me to keep the information I have included on my LinkedIn profile short but informative.

While Carolina’s post expanded my limited knowledge of video resumes that Will and I touched upon in our discussion.

Finally, I would like to draw your attention to this quote I found through one of Rachel’s references; “We may have grown up with the Internet but many of us have failed to utilise it as part of our professional links”(Donnelly, 2014).

This quote is totally relevant to my comment on Louise’s post in which the issues of discrimination were discussed and our subsequent discussion lead us to both be completely perplexed by the discrimination against those digital ‘immigrants’, discussed in Topic 1, who were unable to find themselves a job through LinkedIn due to their age and supposed technical ability even though they had successful created themselves a professional online profile.

References

BBC News. (2017) Children interrupt BBC News interview. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh4f9AYRCZY (Accessed: 19 March 2017).

Donnelly, D. (2014) Building your professional online profile. Available at: http://www.inspiringinterns.com/blog/2014/04/building-your-professional-online-profile/ (Accessed: 19 March 2017).

Stampler, l. (2014) This Infographic Shows How To Completely Erase Your Identity From The Internet. Available at: http://time.com/13002/this-infographic-show-how-to-completely-erase-your-identity-from-the-internet/ (Accessed: 19 March 2017).

If you aren’t online, you don’t exist

With 77% of employers Googling prospective employees there has never been a better time to develop your online professional profile (Hoffman, 2017).

In Topic 2 both Philip and I touched upon the idea of having a different online personal and professional profile and how the differentiation plays dividends in a successful job application. But how can an authentic online professional profile be developed?

I propose the best way to answer this question is to start by defining ‘authentic’.

(Oxford University Press, 2017)

The question is; are you being ‘authentic’?

Use this authenticity checklist I have created using checkii to find out (Noble, 2017).

This screenshot from my authenticity checklist neatly encapsulates the fine line between being authentic and oversharing (Morin, 2016).

For more information, take a look at this informative YouTube video and subsequent web page.

(Salma Jafri Media, 2016).

According to Watkins (no date) your social networking should supplement and support your professional networking the arguably most significant aspect of your online presence.

Furthermore, the BBC (2013) suggests “you need to make sure that anything on social media that can be seen by a potential employer is going to help you get employed”.

Below is a good and bad example of this.

Fortunately for me my innocent and uncalculated Tweet had no consequences. However, the same cannot be said for Justine Sacco who lost her job following a series of ‘stupid’ Tweets (Ronson, 2015).

While Facebook and Twitter are proven and established networking sites with 83% of recruiters using the sites in their recruitment process (JobVite, 2014) they arguably fall under the ‘social’ category and thus the information we choose to share should be filtered in such a way that like Watkins said should ‘support’ our professional networking sites.

There are a number of professional networking platforms out there enabling you to build an authentic online professional profile (Lorang, 2011; Hunt, 2013).

An example of this can be seen below in my Tutora profile.

However, LinkedIn is a good starting point as it covers the basics of professionalism such as past employment and an opportunity to show off key employability skills. A profile can be tailored to a user’s specific requirements but can also be used to show off personal qualities and interests which allow the user to show a well-rounded picture of themselves in a professional platform (Watkins, no date).

Inspired by my research I have decided to set up my own LinkedIn profile using these 6 steps.

It’s not only LinkedIn and other online professional profile builders that can help you get a job. Blogging can too! Take a look at this presentation I have made using Canva to find out more.

Take the test

Word count: 398

References

BBC (2013) Job hunting: How to promote yourself online. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25217962 (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Dekmezian (2016) Why Do People Blog? The Benefits of Blogging. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-dekmezian/why-do-people-blog-the-be_b_8178624.html (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Harris (2014) Using social media in your job search. Available at: http://moocs.southampton.ac.uk/websci/2014/03/13/ill-tweet-job-spec-snap-cv/ (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Hoffman (2017) Job Applicant, Beware: You’re Being Googled. Available at: https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/hr-googling-job-applicants (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Hunt (2013) 5 Best Apps to Build Your Online Professional Profile. Available at: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/5-best-apps-to-build-your-online-professional-profile/ (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

JobVite (2014) Social Recruiting Survey. Available at: https://www.jobvite.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Jobvite_SocialRecruiting_Survey2014.pdf (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Liubarets (2016) Top Blogging Statistics: 45 Reasons to Blog. Available at: http://writtent.com/blog/top-blogging-statistics-45-reasons-to-blog/ (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Lorang (2011) 7 Free Sites for your Professional Online Profile. Available at: http://www.imagemediapartners.com/blog/bid/48836/7-Free-Sites-for-your-Professional-Online-Profile (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Morin (2016) There Is A Clear Line Between Oversharing And Being Authentic –Here’s How To Avoid Crossing It. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2016/10/22/there-is-a-clear-line-between-oversharing-and-being-authentic-heres-how-to-avoid-crossing-it/#4905ef6756e3 (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Noble (2017) Truth Will Out – Why Authenticity is the Key to Growing Your Business. Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/truth-will-out/ (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Oxford University Press (2017) Authentic. Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/authentic (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Ronson (2015) ‘How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life’, The New York Times, 12 February. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=3 (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Salma Jafri Media (2016) Are you being real and vulnerable or oversharing on social media?. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOWopi7Fvn4 (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Tapscott (2014) Five ways talent management must change. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/10/don-tapscott-talent-management-millennials/ (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

The Employable (2014) How blogging can help you get a job. Available at: http://www.theemployable.com/index.php/2014/10/28/blogging-can-help-get-job/ (Accessed: 12 March 2017).

Watkins (no date) Developing Your Professional Online Identity. Available at: https://cstudies.ubc.ca/sites/cstudies.ubc.ca/files/cs/documents/program/tmap/Developing-Your-Professional-Online-Identity.pdf (Accessed: 12 March 2017).