Topic 3: Summary-Developing an Authentic Professional Profile

Topic 3 has generated some interesting thoughts amongst my peers and myself. We all easily recognised the importance of creating an authentic online professional profile. The topic encouraged us to investigate what employers are able to learn about us, and a number of my peers were surprised to find exactly what information they were making public.

Over the Internet, and especially social media sites,  gaining peer and social approval is often important, but we must realise that there is a difference between putting our best foot forward and portraying an unrealistic image. One of the problems that were identified was that a number of my peers had very low privacy setting on their personal social media pages, which gave a very different impression about themselves than their professional profiles.  When using the Internet to create a personal brand for yourself you need to ensure consistency.  Being truthful about what you display is the best way to achieve this, I follow this practice but I also have very high privacy setting on my personal social media accounts. I have removed my Facebook account from Google search, and my privacy settings are extremely high so none of my content has public visibility.

One thing that I failed to pick up on in my own article was plagiarism; George Chiverton had some interesting points on this topic. Plagiarism is a big no-no when it comes to creating a personal brand is plagiarism. This covers every aspect of an online presence from blog posts and tweets to your LinedIn CV. Don’t just copy and paste others’ personal statements. I have come across a number of instances where people have copied other peoples CVs and presented false information about themselves; employers will notice this.  When it comes to tweeting and retreating, make sure you let your followers know if it’s not your own. Twitter is a powerful critic and many have felt the backlash from plagiarised tweets.

http://www.examiner.com/article/why-is-shia-labeouf-plagiarizing-his-tweets-now

Overall, I found this subject of great interest and enjoyed seeing my peers opinions and responses.  It’s a subject I will increasingly devote time to as I progress in my professional career.