Friday, September 19th, 2008
I’ve talked about this before and have had varying opinions from both sides of the argument. Of course, a topic like this isn’t going to be put to rest that easily, and I’d like to share with you something said in class today.
It was mentioned that something like 77% of employers screen their prospective employees on Facebook. I can almost hear the groaning now, but get this: the audience (aka the class) was given the opportunity to ask the rest of the class questions, and one of the questions was “If you were an employer, would you use Facebook to screen your prospective employees?”
Now we have these clicker remote devices that work as a polling device, and the result?
More than 75% of the 450 people attending the class said yes.
I don’t think we’re all from the same field, there are people from commerce, nursing, film, arts and science and many other places taking this course. But I think people of this generation know how things work. My point is even if you think the 40 or 50 year old boss isn’t checking our your Facebook profile, the newest member of the HR department is.
Still think you should leave your drunk pictures up there?
Tags: drunk pictures, employers checking facebook, facebook, online identity, online reputation, screening on facebook
Posted in Gen Y, social media | 19 Comments »
Friday, August 15th, 2008
I’m very happy to share with everyone here in Asia that Hutch Carpenter got a job at Connectbeam via social media. I’m not going to rehash the whole story because I think he tells it better on his blog, but I just want to share how amazed I am that a job could be the end result of a comment going:
Hutch:
Would love to connect with you and discuss some ideas.
When did we ever have a world like this? Where blogging and leaving a comment could result in a hiring opportunity. Utterly amazing. I’d also like to point out that Hutch’s employer had a Google Alerts feed for “enterprise 2.0″, which is what Hutch is into, further emphasising the importance of tagging, and making sure you’re deeply associated with what you blog about/your passion is.
I’ve blogged about Hutch previously in a “Blogs worth reading” segment, feel free to check that out as well a a previous story on a student getting employed via Twitter or my own experience with getting employed via social media.
Will employment opportunities like these start to exist in Asia? Or do they sound like wishful delusions right now? Probably somewhere in the middle. I’m going to say in Singapore particularly, just blogging or being online is not going to work. You’d probably need to meet people who will then refer you to someone else. I think as management starts to get more sophisticated and spend more time getting used to this new digital world, the opportunities will start to increase. So start working on it now, just don’t expect instant results.
Tags: blogs woth reading, building your brand, connectbeam, enterprise 2.0, hutch carpenter, online reputation, self branding, social media helps to find jobs, social media resume, student employed via twitter
Posted in social media | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
So on Sunday night I was talking to Rubin and said “Very disturbing. If I Google you, I get your Facebook profile and your profile picture is that of you at a party”. So we had a long conversation where we generally had opposing views. I said it mattered, he said it didn’t.
Monday I came into the office and found (to my surprise) Pauline here, starting a five month internship. Somewhere in the middle of the day she said something to the effect of she has to watch her Facebook pictures now that she’s at work.
That got me thinking, is this caution over ones’ online identity and online reputation restricted to us in the communications field? Or should it apply equally across the board? Are employers in the banks less likely to Google their prospective employees than communications professionals?
I don’t have empirical evidence for this, but my gut says no, they should be equal. As much as you want a proper resume that indicates your prospective hire isn’t an ex-murderer, you’d probably want to run a search to make sure your wealth management employee doesn’t have a history of being in the press for the wrong reasons, or that the lawyer you’re going to hire for your firm isn’t being slammed online for bad legal advice by disgruntled people online, or that the last house your prospective architect designed for another client didn’t cave in on itself. You get my point.
I’d say that at at best, when someone Googles you, something positive comes out. At minimum, something neutral that doesn’t indicate you’re a poor performer. At the very least, finding something about volunteer efforts is better than pictures at a club. Rubin thinks differently, ie that not even appearing in a Google search is good. No news is good news?
What about you? What do you want your prospective employer to find on you when they Google you? Or do you think they won’t Google you? Is your online identity an important part of your resume to manage? Are Google searches on prospective employees more likely to occur in one industry over another? Share your thoughts!
Tags: online identity, online reputation, reputation management
Posted in Google | 19 Comments »
