Social Networks and Employment

Linkedin Gravestone - is this the end

Linkedin – Is it the end?

Wednesday afternoon, twiddling my thumbs, playing with google advertising, doing some business “housekeeping”. Exciting is not going to find its way anywhere near that sentence. To break up the monotony I  decided to head over to Linkedin for some inspiration, after all I had not been on my profile page for quite a while, and I had recently received some random connection requests that I had ignored and thereby can justify my “timeout”. What I found was that in the past four years nothing has changed for the better and I would argue that Linkedin, in its desperation to generate income has encouraged a downward turn in content worth reading. Linkedin has become Facebook-esque. Always threatened to happen but now it has truly arrived or maybe it happened three and half years ago when I dozed off.

Anyway

The evidence was in my so called Linkedin news stream. It all started well enough, with a decent share from Hubspot, always a good source, about how to get people to click on your web content and engage.

Up next a sponsored ad about big data – big yawn, that’s not to argue against big data, but it is all a little dull, vague and requires a room full of ultra-geek personnel to decode – pop goes the staff budget, but “hey guys we are popular in the Indian subcontinent”.

Stick with me it gets better, per se..

I don’t really mean better per se, I actually mean that the peasants are revolting, bad double entendre aside and an interesting snippet from one my old MDs out of the way, but there is a small fightback being mounted. But before I get to that, let’s get inspired by some of the content further down the news, and if this doesn’t make you want to fire the person that posted it then nothing will:

 

Linkedin is the end - Inspired photo

Whoever that chap is he needs a promotion for being so “on message”, as does the fella that “Completely agree with this”. High fives all round. I’m not cynical before you think it, I’m just so very bored with the mindset of the people that feel the need to publish this kind of trite self-help rubbish instead of just working. What makes matters worse is that the man in the photo isn’t alone, he is with a photographer although I suppose I should be grateful that there is no selfie involved.

Further down the list, I encounter some sly casual sexism dressed up as content by Linkedin themselves:

Linkedin - is this the end sexism on Linkedin

Why is this sexist? Firstly, it’s a photograph of, in case you didn’t notice, a woman. Secondly, why couldn’t it have been a man with his shirt opened to his navel? If the point of the exercise is to encourage the Linkedin user base to upload a photo and by doing so allow them the opportunity of winning the chance of a headshot;

[success]”We’re traveling across the country to offer free headshots and profile advice to our members. So stop by and we’ll help take your profile from good to amazing.” Linkedin[/success]

If this is truly the case then have the courage to run the campaign with the headshot of a model. Maybe I’m wrong but….

Finally, after a few more adverts and some other superfluous shares I came across this:

Linkedin is not Facebook

Hooray. No really, I mean whoop with joy and share amongst all of your colleagues on Linkedin, they will after all be delighted. Or probably not. Because whoever posted this failed to see that by posting this they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. the solution is not to post at all. Why do you feel the need? What empty hole at the center of your being is this sharing papering over? None. You have no reason to share anything at all on Linkedin any longer. No one really cares what your views are other than when they come to use them against you. Linkedin entices you to share by making it simple. This is not reason enough to stop thinking for yourself and allowing your index finger to take control. Sharing will not enhance your career prospects.

Linkedin is just a global directory, let’s all be professional and treat it like one.

(In the time it took to write this article another 7 updates entered my news feed. Sign up to our non-existent mailer for an update on this circa June 2019)

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Death of the CV (again)

Jaigris Hodson of Ryerson University Toronto has heralded the death of the Resume/CV once more. Hodson has suggested that we should all embrace a digital platform as the CV will soon be (if it isn’t already) firmly on the extinction watchlist. Jaigris is quite rightly informing her pupils that to succeed in the job market will require a digital presence that employers can research or find when looking for talent. But is she correct when she claims that some employers will discount you for not having a digital portfolio?

Not quite but in only in so far that the statement is subjective.

Employers will discount you if you do not fulfill the requirement of the position requirements as advertised. If they ask for something then you should supply it as it will be a fundamental part of the application process. If they have no asked for something and you supply additional information then this could possibly exclude you too. So how can you ensure that you pass the first hurdle? Follow the requirement exactly and do not deviate without first seeking approval.

That’s enough digression, what about the death of the CV? In fairness and for clarity, Jaigris actually stated that it was the Resume headed for extinction but surely they are the same? No again, and this is where it becomes a little more interesting; our North American cousins are ahead of us in the UK & EMEA when it comes to embracing technology, and in this respect she is correct. Luckily we have more breathing space to adopt digital visibility but not much and maybe a year or two at the very extreme.

What should you do? Adopt and adapt. A Professional CV, Linkedin Profile and Executive Personal Website are the perfect solution for now and the oncoming future.

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Linkedin Writing Service

Linkedin Contacts Update Released

From the Linkedin Blog: Linkedin has released an update to it’s iPhone app – which looks to organise your contacts in a “smarter way”:

Have you ever wished for a personal assistant who reminds you when your colleagues are celebrating new jobs or birthdays? Or have you wanted to quickly pull up the last conversations you had with people before you head out to meet them?

Today we’re proud to announce the launch of LinkedIn Contacts, a smarter way to stay in touch with your most important relationships. With this new product, we bring all your contacts from your address books, email accounts, and calendars together with the power of your LinkedIn network. Contacts is available both on LinkedIn.com as well as a brand new app for iPhone. Over the coming weeks, we’ll start sending invitations to try LinkedIn Contacts to a limited number of members in the United States.

With the new LinkedIn Contacts experience, we’ve introduced features in three areas:

Bring all your contacts to one place

LinkedIn Contacts brings together all your address books, emails, and calendars, and keeps them up to date in one place. From these sources, we’ll automatically pull in the details of your past conversations and meetings, and bring these details directly onto your contact’s profile.

Never miss an opportunity to say hello

Get alerted on job changes and birthdays in your network, a perfect opportunity to stay in touch. Also, you can set reminders and add notes about the important people in your life.

Take it on your mobile device

Stay connected on the go. LinkedIn Contacts is available as a standalone app for iPhone, so you can stay in touch with your contacts wherever you work.

[iframe src=”https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/19823751″ width=”430px” height=”356″]

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Dawn Siff Job Search

Twesume and the Vine CV

The #twesume and how to condense your Resume or CV into 140 characters or less has been doing the rounds for quite a while but seems to be gathering a head of steam again. For those of you that have not climbed aboard the twitter band waggon, the twesume is a way of using twitter to promote your cv by describing yourself in an interesting way abbreviated to 140 characters.

The more savvy twitter users are putting a link to an actual CV in the tweet, and those that are really on the pulse of social media are going one step further with the incorporation of a Vine video (Vine is available on the iPhone App Store. A vine video is a 6 second looping video that can be posted to the network, and it has quite a creative feel with people using animation and stop motion to condense what would otherwise be a clip longer than 6 seconds. Some have used it to give their #twesume another dimension such as what is claimed to be the worlds first Vine Resume/CV by the journalist Dawn Siff:
[iframe src=”http://vine.co/v/b6wxtwrwP7P/embed/postcard” width=”325px” height=”340″]

The bottom line according to Dawn is that the Vine Resume did not get her the job it came down to good old fashioned networking and a referral from a friend. However, the employer was impressed with the video which was introduced by Dawn when the opportunity arose. Dawn produced an infographic to explain how she approached her job search and the effort that she put in. Personally, I think the most telling aspect is the date stamp at the top and how long it took her to secure a position: 6 months and 4 days.

[image source_type=”url” source_title=”Dawn Siff Infographic” source_value=”http://25.media.tumblr.com/b03342119a347c85837fd39b861d2075/tumblr_mkwsvtVHjD1rmvt01o1_1280.png” autoHeight=”true”]

CV Takeaway:
[list style=”list2″ color=”green”]

  • A Professional CV or Resume will create an opportunity
  • Networking is still a major key to finding employment
  • Being creative with your approach can help you secure a role
  • Sometimes, it does not happen overnight

[/list]

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Paris Brown Twitter Remarks Cost Job

Paris Brown – The things kids say

Paris Brown, forced to resign from her employment as Britain’s first youth police commissioner, will be remembered for the added dubious distinction of making choice remarks on Twitter in what were still her formative years. Apparently. Although the word on the “street” is that quite a few choice remarks were made in the last 6 months and not just between the ages of 14 and 16. But what of it and what can the rest of us learn from the story?

An obvious conclusion is not to write anything that is, or could be construed as, confrontational on a social network. That is simplistic enough solution for anyone over the age of 40 but what of the population below this age? The “youth of today”, consider the Social Networks a place to dump a plethora of inane remarks for the legions of “friends” to respond to in an equally if not superior example of banality. I’m not going to defend any remarks that are made on Twitter or Facebook, but my instinct coupled with a little introspective consideration suggest that people in glass houses should not throw stones as only the truly righteous will have no skeletons in the closet.

Every generation is the same, there is nothing new under the sun, but the difference for those of us old enough to remember the days before the commercial internet, and this should be seen as pre 1990, will remember that you could say what you wanted (free speech) within reason, without running the risk of losing your job or having your collar felt by the police. As a general rule of thumb teenagers are reckless, feckless beings. Or are they just full of the spirit of youth, brimming with carefree abandon? I would say it’s both. In the instance of Paris, if you scrape past the broad brush of the media and look at the remarks they could be considered zeitgeist generalisations, a crass stereo typical identifier labelling by a kid. She was wrong but in a realm where only a peer group is invited, sometimes the parents can be considered caught sleeping on the job.

But could she prove to be the start of a pivotal moment in the history of social networking? As someone that has learnt from taking the hard path, she would do well to take the blows, stand tall, and turn her lesson into one that can be shared for the common good. She made a mistake, and she should now be allowed to make amends as ambassador for reasonable, acceptable behaviour.

For the rest of us, we should ingest the lesson quickly, or the forfeit could be equally catastrophic for career aspirations. There are ways for everyone to protect themselves from scrutiny, and if your subconscious can not be trusted (a word to the wise – it can’t), then maybe you should consider an exercise in pertinency and perform a social network purge?

Twitter and Facebook are seen as a visible statement of consciousness by a generation. A place where controversy is the king maker, audacity a crown prince but in every court there is a fool, and in the land of the blind the one eyed girl could be Queen.

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