Managing your professional digital profile

@lisaharris21st October 2014

#LLWDE14

Building a professional digital profile

• What are employers doing?• What can job seekers be doing during their

studies?• Tools that I use• Digichamp case studies – past and present

About.me/lisa.harris

3

Finding me online

www.about.me/lisa.harriswww.twitter.com/lisaharriswww.linkedin.com/in/lisajaneharrishttp://www.slideshare.net/lisaharrishttps://www.vizify.com/lisa-harrishttp://digitaleconomy.soton.ac.uk/people/lisa-harris/

Did you know…?

Digital marketing principles can also be applied to ourselves to networks and attract potential employersCreative videos produced by candidates now play an important role in the job application processAs do blogging, tweeting and participating in relevant online communities such as LinkedIn38 million students and recent graduates are now on LinkedIn, its fastest-growing demographic. Socialnomics 2014 by Erik Qualmann

According to the British Computer Society…

Employers increasingly require validation of digital literacy skills and employability can depend on it.

Why is Digital Literacy important to employers and employees?

• Digital literacy is required in 77% of all employment• Digital literacy is expected to be required in 90% of all

employment by 2015• Employability for graduates increasingly requires a broad range of

digital literacy skills• Employers expect graduates to be able to communicate using

digital media”(http://www.bcs.org/category/17854)

Digital Literacy• “Digital literacy is the ability to locate, organise, understand,

evaluate, and analyse information using digital technology. It involves a working knowledge of current tools and an understanding of how they can be used”

• “The active management of online activities such as collaboration, networking , content creation and curation in order to “stand out from the crowd” in today’s job market”

• “an ability to respond positively to change”

“Life

-wid

e” a

nd “

life-

long

” le

arni

ng

Contacts

Experts

Teachers

Classmates Friends

Family

Coworkers

Synchronous Communication

Mobile Texting

Video Conferencing

Microbloging

Instant Messaging

RSS

Wikis

Blogs

Subscriptions readers

Podcasts

Social Bookmarking

Social Networks

Information ManagementLibrary/

Texts

Open CourseWare

Evaluating Resources

Scholarly Works

Locating Experts

Wendy Drexler (2008)

So what are employers doing?

• According to a recent study by Jobvite – 92% of recruiters use social media in the hiring process– 80% had been positively influenced by a candidate’s

professional social network profile– 78% had been negatively influenced towards a candidate’s

inappropriate use of social media

• The best candidates might not be actively looking for a new job (up to 90% of the workforce)

• Social media can identify the best talent , encourage conversation and build relationships with them

• Enables recruiters to promote their company as “a great place to work”

Why should you care?A standard CV is no longer sufficient to stand out from the crowd in a global and rapidly evolving job market.

“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”- Karl Fisch, “Did You Know”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmwwrGV_aiE

So what should job seekers do?

• Recognise that building an online personal brand is now a critical aspect of career development

• It boosts our reputation and gives us new skills in communication, creativity and reflective thinking.

• The information we display on social networks should actively encourage rather than discourage potential employers

• Don’t “opt out” - finding NOTHING about a person on a Google search creates a negative impression too

The Future of You

“Welcome to a new era of work, where your future depends on being a signal in the noisy universe of human capital. In order to achieve this, you will need to master three things: self-branding, entrepreneurship, and hyperconnectivity.” By Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, in the HBR blog

Dare you Google yourself...?

www.employadam.com

• The original video• Why it works• The follow up video

Using social media to get a job

• Connect (LinkedIn, FB, Twitter)• Collaborate (Skype, Dropbox, Google Drive)• Create (Wordpress, Soundcloud, Pinterest,

YouTube/Vimeo) • Curate (ScoopIt, Delicious, Slideshare)

Blogs: pulling it all together• Use the blog framework as a central point pulling in your other

social media content:

– Tweets – Flickr – LinkedIn – Vimeo - Slideshare – Pinterest - Soundcloud - YouTube

• You can also embed other social media within individual blog posts• Video is increasingly important, especially authentic user

generated content• Provide sharing buttons • These activities provide a regular supply of “googlejuice” to the

blog

Google likes blogging

• Social media interaction with digital content is the *biggest influence* on its search visibility:

1. Facebook shares2. Facebook comments3. Facebook likes4. Tweets

http://www.socialmediastrategist.co.uk/blog/1-news/175-social-media-seo

Digital Footprints: the practicalities

• It requires a long term strategy to develop a digital “footprint” which demonstrates our skills, and build an appropriate network of contacts.

• The successful author and speaker Chris Brogan talks about “paying it forward” – meaning we should give before we receive.

• For a more negative view of “digital tattoos”, see this TED video presented by Juan Enriquez of Harvard

Reppler

• Go to http://reppler.com and check your own social media profiles. The tool highlights any inappropriate content, and shows you what aspects of your information are publically available. Then you can connect directly to Facebook to edit your privacy settings and adjust the visibility of your content as necessary.

• This exercise does require you to allow Reppler access to your social media accounts as explained in their privacy policy

• “Every potential candidate for 2040 presidental election is now unelectable due to Facebook” - satire

Digital Champions

Sam Su

Oliver Bills

Marina Sakipi

Panos Grimanellis

George Georgiev

Hamed Ayhan

Hamed

Ayhan

Farnoosh Berahman

Manish Pathak

Ivan Melendez

Ahmed Abulaila

Lucy Braiden

Alessia Fiochi

25

Digichamps: Ivan Melendez

• KISM MSc @ Southampton 2012• Helped out with employability workshops and

university events• Now working for Hootsuite in Vancouver• http

://moocs.southampton.ac.uk/digital-marketing/2014/10/10/building-professional-online-profile/

Digichamps: Flo Broderick

• Took Digital Marketing and CI modules, learned interviewing skills and video editing

• Helped out in a big way at Digital Media Europe • Masterminded student contribution to

Digital Literacies Conference • Provided student perspective on our research into

online learning MOOC filming in Portus• Now in Madrid working for Telefonica Digital

27

Getting started: useful resources

• Social media for the terrified (by Sue Beckingham, Sheffield Hallam)

• http://www.southampton.ac.uk/careers/students/events/online.html - webinar on digital footprints (8 mins)

• Time spent online to exceed time watching TV in 2014 (eMarketer research)

• A recruitment agency perspective • The digital revolution is still gearing up (Marketing Week)• A collection of relevant articles on Scoopit

29