The one thing that employers at the PRCA Careers Day agreed on is the need to look after and nurture your online presence. It isn't enought to simply be present on social media, you also need to be active, but exactly how much sharing should you do? More and more employers are looking at online profiles as part of the recruitment process, as this bbc news programme confirms, so how do you ensure that you are safeguarding your reputation online?
At the PRCA Careers Day Waggener Edstrom handed out fliers to participants warning them of the dangers of over-sharing; they offer the following tips to, in their words, 'pimp your social media presence':
- tread carefully posting pictures: embarrassing pics of a night out might look funny to you and your mates but HR will worry about repeat performances
- "got home at 3am, work tomorrow; eek!": burning the candle at both ends may seem cool but HR will see this as being tired and hungover at work
- "can't wait to hit @nandos_official tonight": this might be interesting to you but make sure that your content reflects your passions and not just your diary
- "find me on Facebook, twitter, blogger, MySpace, pinterest, bebo...": just joining sites is not enough. rove how digitally-savvy you really are by being active on all.
So review your online presence and ask yourself, is this how I would want employers to see me? Am I happy that I'm developing the right online reputation? Showing your bubbly, outgoing personality is fine, but if you tweet more about your pizza than your passions, start making some changes now!
Some great advice, Sarah. Developing your reputation online - and knowing the ins and outs of using digital PR - are increasingly important for new entrants to the PR industry. As a coincidence, the MSc International Public Relations students are having a Digital PR workshop this afternoon incorporating some key online skills, run by digital marketing lecturer Brendan Keegan. Online skills are a must for anyone wanting to work in PR - and as online is often one of the first places a prospective employer will look when checking out candidates, having a professional online presence is crucial...
ReplyDeleteInteresting - but isn't it the case that employers will soon expect us all to be managing (I've even heard the dread word 'curating') our online presence for presentational purposes? A search will reveal a perfect, idealised individual just like the one on the CV - despite all mature employers knowing that all CVs are partial and therefore fictional.
ReplyDeleteI also worry that self-reputation management leads to internalising a set of hegemonic principles. Obviously all savvy employers Google their applicants: does that mean that our whole lives are to be led according to the requirements of imaginary employers? In an ideal world that imaginary employer is only interested in the skills and commitment we apply to the job - everything else should be extraneous. However, if we unquestioningly internalise the discourses of corporate authority, are we free in any meaningful fashion? Will we police ourselves to the extent that a sarcastic Tweet or a provocative comment on Facebook becomes unacceptable in case a potential employer misinterprets tone or glimpses an unrepresentative line in an ongoing discussion?
FInally - I can't help thinking that online reputation management is a Sisyphean task: we can select what we're putting on the web, but it's virtually impossible to police what others are saying about us - unless we all adopt pseudonyms (like me!).
I've had a think about this and posted a much longer exploration of the same ideas here: http://plashingvole.blogspot.com/2012/03/sshhh-screens-have-ears.html
ReplyDeleteNo I disagree. This is not about producing a corporate sanitised view of yourself, on the contrary, speaking to agency heads at a PR industry event last night it is clear that they are looking for personality and colour in digital footprints - this is a creative industry after all. The issue here is about which sides of our personalities we choose to share online; you, for instance, do not reveal your identity, others develop multiple identities to deal with different elements of their personalities and I am sure that psychologists could have a field day with that.
ReplyDeleteBut the issue for PR students is not how they can produce meaningless corporate profiles but how they can develop meaningful profiles which reflect their hobbies and interests as much as their lunch choices. Employers, at least those that I have spoken to, want fun-loving individuals, and want to see online profiles that reflect many different facets of an individual. So this is not about hiding parts of your identity to tow the corporate line, this is about using the technology wisely to reflect who you are. And that's pragmatic not philosophical.