Topic 3 – Looking Back

This week was focused on building your online professional profile. Again there was some good variation between the blogs.

I mainly focused on the informal/social aspect of professional online profiles, highlighting the importance of authenticity. Freya’s blog agreed with my suggestion of creating multiple accounts across multiple websites under the same name and updating them regularly with genuine information. Which she cleverly named ‘authentic self-brand’. Freya extended this idea with the suggestion of connecting with potential employers through social media, which I thought was a nice touch.

As Deepbim pointed out in his comment on my blog, many students focused on the professional aspect of the topic, especially direct interactions with employers through LinkedIn. Whilst I whole-heartedly agreed with this train of thought, I believe there is more to your online professional profile than just the website designed to connect employers to potential employees. Personally I felt that your online professional profile was built up from all your online interactions under that name. Obviously LinkedIn is a significant component of your profile, but it is still a component nonetheless.

Aeragan’s blog post got my attention because he highlighted how employers being able to access our social media accounts is a good thing; allowing them to see another side to their candidates, a personal side. An aspect that is unlikely to come across in a C.V. or a job application. This got me thinking as to whether showing details about your personal interests could lead to unfair discrimination between candidates. However in an interesting discussion between Aeragan and myself, he unearthed that employers could look for candidates with personal interests that would improve the candidate’s suitability for a job. His example of a poker player and a financial advisor was spot on. These comments can be seen here.

Dom