Online identity and employability

Fiona Harvey and Lisa Harris24th January 2013LLAS Workshop

Fiona Harvey• Fiona Harvey is an Educational Development

Manager with the Centre for Technology in Educational Innovation at the University of Southampton. She is Chair of the Digital Literacies Special Interest group.

• www.elearning.soton.ac.uk• www.twitter.com/fionajharvey• www.linkedin.com/fionaharvey

Lisa Harris• Lisa is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Director of the

MSc programme in Digital Marketing and Co-Chair of the Digital Economy USRG at the University of Southampton. She is also an accredited tutor for the University of Liverpool online MBA programme.

• www.digitaleconomy.soton.ac.uk• http://lisaharrismarketing.com• www.twitter.com/lisaharris• www.slideshare.net/lisaharris• www.delicious.com/lisaharris1

Topics to cover

• You personal online identity• Employability: what’s changed• The employer perspective• Building your professional online profile• Case study examples• Satire by the Onion (2 mins)

Online Identity

Personal identity - Why bother?

MOOCs

And now we have

On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog…

Goo.gle [goo-guh l]verb, Goo.gled, Goo.gling( often lowercase ) to search the Internet for information about (a person, topic, etc.): We googled the new applicant to check her background.

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

Dare you Google yourself...?

Activities

What do you think about being online? What are the advantages and challenges of having an online presence?

http://is.gd/identityactivityOnline Identity calculatorhttp://www.onlineidcalculator.com/index.php

Employability: what’s changed?

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

Rationale

• Maintaining a personal brand through online and offline networking is becoming a critical aspect of career or business development

• It is essential that the information displayed online is going to encourage rather than discourage potential customers, collaborators etc.

• This session reviews our ongoing work at Southampton into the impact of social networking upon profile building and employability

21st Century Careers by JISC

• Competition for employment in a global knowledge economy

• increased levels of self-employment and portfolio working• growth of multi-disciplinary teams focused on specific

tasks whose members might be physically located anywhere in the world

• life within a networked society • blurring of boundaries between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’, public

and private• increasingly ubiquitous use of digital technologies.

www.employadam.com

• The video• Why it works

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

What does this mean?

• Self-branding is about being a signal in the noise of human capital.

• Entrepreneurship is about adding value to society by disrupting it and improving the order of things: it is turning the present into the past by creating a better future.

• Hyperconnectivity is about being a signal in the sea of data and making and shaping the waves of social knowledge.

My takeaways

• Self branding is not about “look at me”, but about “doing great stuff” which others then amplify on your behalf

• Authenticity is harder to achieve than buzz, but it is the only differentiator in the longer term

• Hyperconnectivity is the only really new factor

The employer perspective

Employers will check you out online• According to a recent study by Cross-Tab Marketing services: – 75% of HR departments worldwide are required to screen

job candidates online – 70% of recruiters claim they have rejected potential

employees based on information surfaced online– 50% say that a strong online reputation influences their

hiring decisions to a “great extent” • Syracuse University (NYC) has purchased a subscription to

Brand-Yourself.com’s online reputation management platform for all 4,100 of its graduating students.

Flipping the Funnel

• A well defined online presence allows employers to specify exactly what type of candidates they are looking for

• candidates can check out company ‘fit’ through posted video, tweets, blogs, personal interactions on LinkedIn

• The CV becomes the final stage in the process rather than the first

• Video drops• Check out the Hootsuite example

Building your professional profile

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)

Build & maintain your LinkedIn profile

• Ivan’s presentation highlights the increasingly central role of LinkedIn for job hunters

• “How to” guides for building your LinkedIn profile are available here

• Key points for getting started:– Send a personal message to people you wish to connect with– Make sure your profile is 100% complete– Collect and give recommendations– Connect your Slideshare and Wordpress accounts into

LinkedIn

Case study examples

Be creative

• See Ed Hamilton’s CV on Google Maps • Jay Foreman’s video history of London’s tube

stations• The video CV (4mins)

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

How social media has helped my work

• Developing new contacts • Sourcing newly published articles, calls for papers and relevant events to

attend• Tracking and commenting on the blogposts of key contributors to the

field• Keeping in touch, real time, with project participants and other key

contacts– www.digitaleconomy.soton.ac.uk– www.about.me/lisa.harris– www.lisaharrismarketing.com– www.twitter.com/lisaharris– www.slideshare.net/lisaharris– www.delicious.com/lisaharris1– www.linkedin.com/in/lisajaneharris

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

A few notes of caution...

• Ongoing time and effort is required to develop and maintain online profiles, learn new tools and ascertain when best to integrate them into the mix.

• F2F brand building elements should not be forgotten – our research shows that it is not a zero sum game, good online networkers also tend to be effective communicators offline.

• As with most things in life, you get out what you put in, and persistence pays off.

• It is critical to be authentic. An *enduring* personal brand is not developed by basing it simply on ego, spin or piggybacking off the work of others...

• Boundaries between ‘business’ and ‘personal’ are blurring

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

Exercise

• What will YOU do after this session to develop your online profile

Resources

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

Linchpin

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

“Linchpin” by Seth Godin

• It's now more essential than ever to become indispensable - to become a linchpin.

• Linchpins are essential building blocks: they invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos.

• If you have you ever found a shortcut that others missed, seen a new way to resolve a conflict, or made a connection with someone others couldn't reach, then you have what it takes to become indispensable.

• It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map (from Amazon review)

• Seth Godin Interview (9 minutes)

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

For a comprehensive set of resources on personal branding:http://www.personalbrandingblog.com

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

References• Harris, L. and Rae, A. (2010) “Building a personal brand through

social networking” Journal of Business Strategy• Prensky, M. 2009. H. sapiens digital: From digital immigrants and

digital natives to digital wisdom. 5 (3). http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=705

• Schawbel, D. (2009) Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success

• Vaynerchuk, G. (2009) Crush It!: Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion

• Godin, S. (2010) Linchpin: Are you indispensable? How to drive your career and make a remarkable future

• Brogan, C. and Smith. J. (2009)Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust

• Mayfield, A. (2010) Me and my Web Shadow

@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

Useful Guides• A blog. Plenty of good advice here:

http://www.slideshare.net/demler1/developing-your-personal-brand-through-blogging

• Twitter: – guides can be linked from:

http://www.twitip.com/personal-brand-how-to-build-yours-in-twitter– www.teachertrainingvideos.com useful beginner guides (by @russell1955)– http://www.slideshare.net/richardsedley/twitter-for-marketing-an-introdu

ction-4639213 (by @richardsedley)

• LinkedIn http://www.thewebpitch.com/social-networking/are-you-linking-in/

• Jay Foreman’s video history of London’s tube stations http://tinyurl.com/36rkt7k