In one of our free summer workshops that we held in Vigo as part of the #FemxaSummerSchool initiative, we talked about how to appropriately use social media for job searching.
When discussing this topic with the attendees, my previous impression was confirmed that a large part of the population actively seeking employment does not trust social networks as a channel for obtaining a job, although there are always exceptions and real cases among the attendees, of people who have accessed a job through Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook, precisely in that order.
Whether or not you are contacted for an interview through these social platforms, it is almost certain that your presence (or absence) on social media has influenced the evaluation of your candidacy, since in a recent survey among human resources staff, almost 90% confessed that they try to obtain more information about candidates by consulting their social profiles, in order to get a more realistic impression of them, as well as to check their digital skills, an increasingly essential skill in the working world. That is why it is so important to have an online presence and to demonstrate that you handle yourself in the virtual environment appropriately.
“If you are not on the Internet, you do not exist.”
Delving deeper into these issues, three key concepts came to light when managing the profiles we use professionally.
Digital footprint . We use this term to refer to the trace we leave on the web, in the form of comments, posts, etc. We all quickly come to the conclusion of the importance of taking care of our attitudes in the digital world.
This video was particularly enlightening, as it shows a very famous case in the US of misuse of one's own image on social media, and the terrible consequences that it can bring.
The Domino's Pizza scandal .
Online reputation . We are referring to the impression that Internet users get of us based on our digital footprint. We want to offer the most professional image possible, to increase our chances of employability, so, in addition to taking care of our manners, it is highly recommended to periodically monitor our online reputation, that is, what the web says about us.
It is possible to track our footprint in the search engines you use (Google, for example), using the Google alert system to notify you every time you are mentioned or the search engine specialized in blogs www.blogsearchengine.org
If we encounter results that are negative for our interests, we must react quickly and politely, handling criticism appropriately. If we have behaved inappropriately, we will try to eliminate these elements to improve our reputation by trying to ensure that they do not appear on the first page of results.
Personal brand . Your personal brand will depend on your online reputation, based on your digital footprint. This is a concept for personal development that consists of considering yourself as a brand, which you must work on, transmit and protect, seeking originality and differentiating yourself from the rest, in order to provide your own added value.
Once we have cleaned up our digital footprint, we must continue working on our personal list of colombia cell phone numbers brand to position it as high as possible, so we must not stop paying attention to certain good practices:
-Review the Settings/Privacy options on all your web profiles and carefully study which ones interest you. Your goal is to be as contactable as possible, but not at any price.
-Behave in a professional manner, remember that you are in the office, so it is not appropriate to talk about sensitive topics such as politics, religion, etc.
-Unify your username across all the networks you use professionally and distinguish it from the one you use for leisure.
-Include the profiles of your other professional accounts in the description of each of them.
-Monitor your online reputation periodically.
-Take an active part by contributing valuable content, both your own and others', comment, share and participate in discussions related to your sector.
-Increase your professional network of contacts (networking) to have a greater reach, but only if they are related to your sector.
“On social media, sometimes less is more. Prioritize quality over quantity.”
Without a doubt, these are three basic concepts that will be part of almost any selection process in which you participate, even if you don't know it directly.
And you, do you take care of your image on the web? What other good practices would you recommend to clean up your online presence?