Professional

Professional

You are a third year student on the cusp of graduating. You have been using the Internet socially since you were a teenager via chatrooms, gaming and more recently Facebook. You have already secured first interviews for graduate training schemes with two large corporations (A & B), but are still waiting to hear from the one you are most interested in (C).

Scenario 1

A friend tells you they have heard this company routinely screens potential and existing employees on the Web, but the two firms you have interviews with both have a policy to not screen them. In this worksheet, if you do not have a profile yourself, imagine you have one.

Company A & B has a policy “not to check” any of their employees profile on web but Company C check their potential and existing employees accounts online

Answer the following questions!

1. What might your existing Facebook profile say about you if firm C looks at it?

2.Are there any things that can be seen on your, wall, or in notes you have posted which might help encourage firm C to employ you?

3.Conversely, is there anything on your profile that might put an employer off?

4.If you were in the position of shortlisting people for interview and your company had a policy of checking candidates' DIs, how would you interpret it if it was obvious someone had just ‘cleaned up’ their profile?

5.How would you feel if the company you wanted to work for banned use of social networking sites such as Facebook during work hours?

6.How, on the other hand, would you feel if the company you worked for decided its staff had to use a social networking site, and to build customer relationships through it?

Think about after graduation, find out if background research on potential employees using web is common in your country?

Also..

Scenario 2

You are looking for the opportunity to work abroad for a year. You have avoided being drawn in to social networking sites, preferring to spend time with your friends. You have three organisations that offer interesting opportunities for a year out, and you discover from one of your friends that two of them have been getting in touch with potential applicants through LinkedIn, a business social networking site.

While you were chatting with friends over coffee, you heard that there are 20 people applying for each position within the organisations, so it is going to be quite competitive.

Continued…

1.What basic research would you do to try to determine whether you are more likely to be successful in your application if you have a LinkedIn profile?

2.If you choose to create a profile, for the purposes of enabling the organisations to find you, what sort of information would you make available?

3.What do you think it says about you, if you just create the profile with your academic achievements and areas of professional interests?

4.If you were interacting with potential employees via a social networking site, how would you see someone who had created a profile just to interact with you, or to get your attention?

5.What would you post and where would you do it

from?

REFERENCES The content are extracted from ‘This is me’. http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/this-is-me/

Images http://scarlettlibrarian.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/professional.jpg http://www.zoonar.com/photo/cartoon-wise-owl-with-graduation-cap_3386906.html http://www.lorisreflections.com/god-lessons/why-2/attachment/question-mark-2/ http://www.skylightcentre.co.uk/2011/04/healthy/ http://transparentwithmyself.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/happy-excited-cant-sleep/ http://apollonia316.tumblr.com/page/10 http://www.lawrenceinspections.com/Manufactured-Home-Inspections.html http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-cartoon-group-friends-boys-girls-

image27849032 http://www.schoolforstartups.co.uk/i-have-to-show-you-linkedin/ https://www.gcx.org/Pamoja/2012/11/12/information-on-local-contact-person/ http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-professional-man-cartoon-

image14788435 http://eddecosta.me/2011/12/29/lets-be-clear-about-resolutions/