Topic 3: Reflection on Creating an Authentic Professional Profile
For me, the key leaning point from this topic was the need to ensure that your professional profile showcases your personality, not just your skills. This was a point emphasised by Charles Hardy (the speaker on Aliyuâs video). I created my LinkedIn profile a few weeks ago, and looking at it now I realise that it really doesnât show who I am as a person. To be honest, I should have picked up on this earlier â I recently went on an assessment day where they stressed that what the company was looking for was someone with a personality that fitted their culture. Iâve been thinking about recording a video for my LinkedIn account, which would certainly help add some personality – as Francesca was one of those who picked up on this theme I asked her if she would consider creating a video for her LinkedIn profile.
Another eureka moment occurred when looking at Tatianaâs blog, which mentioned that Huang et al. recommended creating an âorganised visualisation of our personâ. While this is definitely something I will try to do, it was actually the word âvisualâ which triggered another line of thought â re: the need to maintain a consistent visual image (brand) across the different platforms we use.
Iâm continually surprised how varied the views of our little blogging community are â one area of contention is the tendency to endow governments and companies with impenetrable motivations and morality; I find this a view a little strange as these organisations are run by people, not machines. Hence, I asked Ben if he felt that hiding our social lives would make us look too bland. It would be interesting to create a quiz around this theme (if the subject of the next topics allow).
The results from my blogâs questionnaire are below, I note that over half of the respondents have yet to set up a LinkedIn profile. I wonder if they think that the act of simply creating an account in the dying days of this course is enough to establish a professional profile.
