Employers, Recruiters and the Web

Many times over, educators ask us how are corporations responding to online personal branding? Why should we consume class time to teach this agenda? How does it help foster career success?  This is the first in a multi-part series covering the WHY as it relates to the online personal branding agenda.

Months ago, I spoke to Kirsti Stubbs, a recruiter with Starbucks Canada. You can check out what she has to say about scouting for candidates within the social media spectrum at this link.

This month, I sat down with Eliot Burdett, a partner with Peak Sales Recruiting. Eliot is a Partner and a very active blogger himself. He and his team make extensive use of the Internet to source and learn about prospective candidates they bring to employers. Eliot shares his views on how a candidate can truly differentiate themselves with an online presence.  He also offers candid views on common mistakes people make when they interact online and apply for jobs.

Friends versus Contacts – its not about volume…its quality

On occasion, I do get people asking to be friends on Facebook that I don’t know socially.  The test I apply is, if I would go out for drinks or have the person in for dinner, then they are likely a friend I would confide in, tell a self-depreciating story or offer support during a tough time.

If I ignore a friend request from you, please don’t take it personally. Link to me in WhyHire.me and in Linkedin once you establish yourself and we have done some work together. Over time, we may very well become friend in life and online.

For those that collect friends like vendors collect business cards at trade shows, remember, you are making a social contract with these people. If you post items of a truly personal nature – a goofy photo, a self-depreciating comment or anything not professional, these posts can be misunderstood, or taken out of context, since your new “friend” does not really know you. Case in point, if you use sarcasm online and the friend does not really know about your sarcastic humor…they will misinterpret your post.

An extreme oh-o, is when someone copies and pastes your Facebook items and puts them in a blog entry for the world to see. Check out this story on Audra Sigler Shea and what happened to her racist remarks she posted in Facebook alongside her trusted friends. In this case, her nasty remarks were simply copied and shared with the world.

Keep your personal and professional world separate. This way you can keep up your sarcastic humor with your buddies and not worry about wierding  people out.

Globe and Mail Launches New Grad Network in Linkedin!

Great news on the personal branding front. The Globe and Mail launched The globecampus New Grad Network within Linkedin this month. Their message is, be found amongst a large base of employers that are poking around inside Linkedin.  By joining, one can get access to weekly career advice and job opportunities. I am pleased to see others encouraging students to put their resumes, passions and interests on line and to be scanning for jobs that will pop up inside the Linkedin! network.

Since we started our first WhyHire.Me pilot in February, our message has been to embrace as much online promotion you can manage. Joining Linkedin! is another great way to extend one’s reach into the job market.

What has made WhyHire.Me so engaging? It boils down to focus and brand.

Linkedin offers itself as a large network capable of delivering on a multitude of requirements – making deals, getting in touch, searching for a partner, finding a contractor, getting a job or getting an unofficial reference on a prospect. Linkedin is the Swiss Army Knife of social networking in business – something I call stakeholder networking.

Our students and working professionals tell us that WhyHire.Me offers a highly declarative purpose – giving students and young working professionals the means to develop their brand and highlight their potential.  We offer our students and working professionals a highly declarative URL. My personal address is www.whyhire.me/andy_church.  When our students promote their URLs in web sites, on paper and in email messages, it sends a very explicit message to the reader. I am pitching you and I believe I have demonstrable experiences and engagement in industry subject matter you should check out.

WhyHire.me also offers a set of third party interfaces to other social media sites that ultimately help enhance the brand of our users and play a role in improving search engine ranking. Check out my delicious links at the bottom of my profile:)

Is WhyHire.Me a Swiss Army Knife? Absolutely not. We offer a very sharp and to the point paring knife that helps students and young professionals develop their online brand and help reveal their potential to land their first job, or that next job down the line.

Our second institutional pilot project is starting next week – we expect to have more lessons learned and great insight from a tremendous batch of students.