Friday 2 November 2012

Treat social media as a shop window for employers, but be careful

Read the BBC article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20155192 and comment on it here.
Write about your personal experiences .
Present professional advantages of social media.


13 comments:

  1. I have mixed feelings. Social media had to be an answer to the need to communicate. And it turned out that what we write and what we think is recorded and what is worse, our life after work becomes multipliers for our employers. Fall into an insane and hard trying to cover his tracks and do not use what is fascinating - easy to communicate and share of something with others. To make matters worse, our employers use social media as an argument to release us.
    Not to be critical of employers only need to tell us be clear if we are thoughtful in our actions on the internet have nothing to worry. Many people treat social media as a kind of blogs that publish the stupidity that at some point in throwing something that can ridicule them, and I think that's the limit to which most people do not think the affair and that's really going on.

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  2. Wikipedia defines social media as "interactive platforms via which individuals and communities create and share user-generated content."
    I believe that nowdays everyone uses some type of social media and some even use many platforms at once creating blogs,updating Twitter and Facebook every day or even minutes. Sometimes it feels that if you are not using the "It" media,you are missing out and you are even treated as an outsider. Furthermore,the media somehow defines your character and personality,e.g. how many friends you have on Facebook justify how popular it is. But,is it true? I know people who become Facebook friends with others that they have known for 5 minutes. Personally,I think that this is just a joke and wrong usage of the portal.
    Looking from the career point of you,I think we do not have a choice and need to follow the latest trends if we want to be considered when hiring. LinkedIn is a best example in this case. Many employers do not use recruitment agencies anymore,but select future employees through the site.
    Like with anything new,the social media brings many advantages if used correctly. You can find a job,reconnect with old friends,meet new ones,share hobbies with others,or even find a love of your life. It is a very good tool,but it needs to be used in moderation.

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  3. In my opinion social media is a very good idea. Thanks to which it is simpler to communicate and stay up to date with all the information that interest us the most. Facebook is helping us at work, as well as is replacing the outdated chat software. All in all, I think that blogs, forums and social networking sites are much-needed and will be needed for consecutive years.

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  4. I totally disagree with the idea of judging people by their profiles in social networks. Actually, I think that people have forgotten about the main purpose of social networks- it was to enable people to communicate easily, without paying outrageous bills. The fact that the purposes of social networks have multiplied is absolutely understandable but until they do not concern our personal lives. If employers were to decide whether to hire someone by looking at their facebook profiles, it would mean that they are not professionals. What is the main reason for which someone is worth a job? Their competencies, ability to work within a group, self-confidence, honesty etc. That is why it should not be even taken under consideration if someone has a nice profile, a lot of ‘likes’ or friends while deciding whether or not they qualify. That would be an absurd, especially when it comes to people who simply do not account this kind of communication and do not have their profiles. However, as I mentioned before, the use of social networks might be very beneficial as long as it is reasonable. We should treat it as a growing trend which is useful to some extent and definitely not as an indicator of being more or less knowledgeable or representative.

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  5. Whole article was very intersting it raises a very nice topic. What internet have changed in our perception of other people?

    About 15 years ago if we want to know more about someone we need to talk to other people, ask them for recomendation.
    But if someone was from other country or even town, we didn't know anything, we had have to rely on what that person told us.

    Now we have internet! Everything what someone ever posted, "shared", "liked", tweeted is awaiable for everyone. It is pretty scary when you google yourself and
    see what other can see only by knowing your name. There are even websites which search for information about you! http://www.123people.pl/

    Every coin have two sides.
    "Treat social media as a shop window for employers ..."
    If you are aware of that, you can use it for your purpose. You can make your "web profile" as you like, be as you want in internet.
    It is very hard to achieve, but it is worth the effects.

    I think it is important to learn people that internet is not they diarys, is is window to our live.

    s7719 said "Facebook is helping us at work". I think social media are very important but like with everything you need to know what are you doing.

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  6. I think that social media is a really good idea and have a lot of advantages, but actually bring some risks. Many people close in the online world and lose touch with reality through what later they can not function in the real world and what is worse they assimilate and in the real world can not make any friends. In addition, the employer will definitely not hire us after seeing a profile on Facebook, for example. Every employer wants to know your potential employer and want to know how to speak and what kind human are you.

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  7. I found some interesting articules about this subject

    http://humanresources.about.com/od/selectemployees/qt/why-use-social-media-for-recruiting-and-screening.htm

    and - Social Media and Employment Law: Six Things You Need To Know

    http://www.monsterthinking.com/2011/03/02/social-media-and-employment-law/

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  8. I am really sorry, but i have to say that i can't agree with that. This article is a real manipulation, not the social media :-) I can see the impact of social media like facebook, twitter etc. in the company which i work for. This company is a big one, also i have alot of friends, from other much bigger companies, which has the status worldwide. None of these professionals have time to check for i.e facebook accounts, none of these people want to do such things, because this is not what makes them professionals - not the "american dream" at all. I guess not many people treats facebook like a place to find a job, or even to be found by a head hunter. I have a good example. I bet most of us, asked a question - "how much social media affects you when buying products online?", would answer "alot", but the answer is - under 1% of our choices on buying products are affected by social media. Search engines and "click on" ads affects our choices more than 60%. We are not manipulated by social media yet. But certainly, we are being manipulated by Google and searching results. The whole positioning thing, related ads to searching results etc etc. If you want to find someone in the internet, your start place would not be facebook. It would be google. I am really scared of what older people than my generation, thinks about social media. It is all wrong, we are not looking for the job on facebok, we don't want to be judged for our facebook profiles, and it won't change in the near future. Facebook is just a fun... :-)

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  9. Social media is the thing which is cool and very popular and in this popularity is the biggest problem. As Przemek said we put on facebook etc. everything from our lives even photos of our breakfasts. As we know everything we put on the internet will live eternally and it's very hard to remove it from there. On Facebook there is one more problem, when we put some photo on our wall this photo becomes the property of Facebook and this is the real theft. The problem is when we put something on social media pages which is illegal the court can use print of out profile from social media as evidence. I think this is curious but you realy can go to jail because of stuff from your facebook profile. If you can go to jail because of Facebook it is not suprising that yours employer can track you and if you wrote something bad about your work he can fired you.

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  10. I think social media have a huge business and nonbusiness potential which is why facebook "is worth" so many dollars.

    @Artur no one is forcing you to use facebook so not using it is my solution for your property problem. The second issue considering your illegal stuff on social media as an evidence is not an issue! Here comes the explenation. You give some of your friends your photo album(this is the same as posting your album on e.g. fb). One of the pictures shows you in an illegal action and your friend is obliged by the law to take care of that. This will be also an evidence against you in the court. I think that law should cover the social media because it wont let it get out of control.

    In my opinion if you are a valuable asset (or a potential valuable asset) to the firm you could even have your naked pictures with a monkey on your hands on facebook and nothing happens(of course there are different boundries for diffrent types of job)

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  11. I have profil on Facebook, but I don't use my real name, also I do not put there a lot of information about me, only my birthday and from where I am. I use it only to communicate with my close friends, for instnce when we try to do something, but we have no time to meet before to discuss. Whole my study year has Facebook group as well, colleagues post there important informations about exams, etc.
    But the true is I do not agree with last Facebook policy. This robbery of informations which people put on it is disgusting. Why social media do it? I am sure for money, they steal our private data, photos, interests to send them to external companies that keep preparing new offers, advertisments and other personally selected lies.
    But what we expected if the founder of the most popular social network 'Facebook' has betrayed his buddies because he has wanted to have whole his kingdom for himself. With this amount of money they could be all extremely rich-Zuckerberg and his fellows. On the other hand they could argue about money at the beginning and damage the Zuckerberg's oryginal draft. Sometimes is better to do things yourself.
    As Artur said, do not be suprising if your employer will fire you when you start complaining about your work. In this case this is good for employers to have this remarkable tool :) While deletion of prospective employers because of lack of attractivness of their profiles is for me a kind of vulgar ignorance. Except the future employee writes only increadibly stupid comments on his wall and, as we good know, these are more than enough :) Assisted by youtube they produce skits better than Monthy Python's Flying Circus.

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  12. Social Media is a subject that particularly interests me since last year. This trend is very interesting for different reasons.
    Network can find everything from your name to the number of shoe, car pictures, etc.. Social media is the new way to communicate, share experiences and leisure activities. From the time when social networking has become something normal in the life of most people, we can talk about a social revolution. Most people spend their free time chatting on the internet and view profiles of friends in order to find out what's going on with them.
    From the perspective of the company, it is important to draw attention to the use of social media in internal communications. This refers to something that has been called Enterprise2.0. Following the trend of sharing of information and collaboration portals and there are many systems that can be implemented in corporations to improve communication processes and knowledge sharing.
    Additional B2C service providers try to use social media for marketing communications and PR. Some of the current social networking sites very well suited to the elapse of time and the power of today's word of mouth takes on a new meaning and new value. There is also a way to measure brand awareness and social media products by observing and analysis terndów posts published by clients or customers pontencjalnych.
    Some of the companies are trying to go ahead and implement strategies to communicate with customers via social media and integrate customer service systems is to these portals. The aim is to obtain as much as possible about the client release information. This information will enable them to better customer profiling tender or award the gift that it coincides with the interests of loyalty.
    I think social media is a very interesting trend that properly used, will give a lot of good for both sides. Client now have a place where they can share their insights and comment on the good and bad moves companies. This information circulates in a short time with the virtual community of friends. Firms need to consider this form of communication and build community, which on one hand will defend its reputation on the other hand, are a voice that society has an impact on improving the quality of services provided.

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  13. Social media and employment is tough topic.

    On one side it's very inconvenient, i.e. you set your company on facebook and you post some controversial post on your wall. Your employer can think that your making some bad PR to the company and react.

    Like in this situation:
    http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10172931-71.html

    Next thing is that if you're applying for the job nowadays the first thing future employer is doing is googling. People have to be very carefully and watch what they're uploading to the social media stuff.

    Another example:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9155368/Companies-asking-for-Facebook-passwords-for-future-employees.html

    On the other positive side is using social media to increase our professional value. It's very useful especially in IT. With social media: twitter, github, etc. you can show that you're no just any developer, you can show you're expert and be famous in very small but specialized society.


    To resume up. Social media are causing that the line between your work and your life is very very small. It can disrupt your peace and make you feel like you are working 24/7.

    But it's not obligatory it all depends on the way you're using social media.

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