Enhancing Your Career With Social Networks
Many may be aware of the growing popularity of social networks. These have increased
accessibility of personal information. This can be dangerous if the wrong information
is retrieved however why not use this medium to your advantage? Expose your skills
and your reputation. Below are a few social networks and ideas.
Facebook is a great way to find people that have similar interests. If you are starting
or contemplating taking on a new course you can join groups or add people who are
already taking the course. Befriend them and ask questions. Be frank and open as
to who you are and the fact that you are interested in the course yet undecided.
Some may be willing to accept and help some wont. Don’t get turned off by
the idea of people not accepting your friend requests or asking who you are. If
you have an interview and would like to know more about the process, it is not always
advisable to find workers already in the company. Overall Facebook is a great way
for social networking both in the corporate world and outside of it.
Lastly do not put statuses such as “I work as a qualified slave”, “My
manager is a douche” or “Why am I still working in this hell hole?”
on your page. These can be deemed as fireable offenses as you are giving the company
a bad public image. You do not want to be seen as the person who publicly slanders
their manager or team. No one wants to hire or work with that individual because
they’d face a risk of having a status update written about them too.
There are numerous articles of people desperately seeking jobs and after trying
everything end up resorting to twitter. Yes twitter. This has worked for some and
may not always work for the majority. Just remember that the whole idea is to give
your CV and yourself as much good exposure as possible.
Status Examples:
“I am looking for a programming job in London. I can program in ASP.Net, c#,
and SQL Server. I attended Imperial College and achieved a 2:1 in Computer Science.
I am looking to start as soon as possible”
“23 year old graduate of Economics. I attended LSE and acquired a 2:1 with
honours. Modules I enjoyed are stochastic models and financial markets.”
“I am straight out of college and I attained 3 B’s in Maths, Sociology
and psychology. I hope to get into a healthcare apprenticeship in order to gain
as much experience as possible. My expected salary is between £16k – £25k.
I am also available for unpaid work as I believe experience is more important at
this stage of my career.”
Linked in is a good way to show off your skills and future endeavours. You can network
with professionals you have met before and also recruitment agencies. It is always
good to keep a healthy and professional relationship with at least one recruitment
agency as they may let you know if they have exclusive job offers for which you
are qualified for.