Central Washington University Digital Profile Map Worksheet

Let’s look at some stats from Career Builder:
? 70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates before hiring
? 3 in 10 employers (30 percent) have someone dedicated to the task of social
recruiting
? Employers who use social networking sites are looking for
? information that supports their qualifications for the job (61 percent)
? if the candidate has a professional online persona (50 percent)
? what other people are posting about the candidates (37 percent)
? a reason not to hire a candidate (24 percent)
? Employers aren’t just looking at social media ? 69 percent are using online
search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing to research candidates as
well
Or we can go directly to the employers
From Microsoft Life: How to Land a Job at Microsoft via Social Media
(Links to an external site.)
Then there is also the Microsoft Data Protection Notice for Employees, External Staff
and Candidates:
Collection and Use of Data from Third Parties and
Social Media
We may also collect personal data about you from third parties or public sources as
needed to support the employment relationship or to engage with you concerning job
opportunities at Microsoft. For example, before and during the course of your
employment or assignment with Microsoft, we may collect information from public social
media sources, such as your public LinkedIn profile, for recruitment purposes. We also
may conduct lawful background screenings, to the extent permitted by law, through a
third-party vendor for information about your past education, employment, credit and/or
criminal history. In the event of a natural disaster or other life/safety emergency, we
may rely on public social media posts or other public sources to account for employees
if otherwise unable to contact them. Additionally, if there is an investigation of an
employee matter, we may obtain information relevant to the incident from external
sources including private parties, law enforcement or public sources like news sources
and public social media posts.
POLICIES BUILT
BY LIBRARIANS
The Digital Libraries are a
comprehensive, cost-effective
way to deliver practical
treatments of important
business issues to every
student and faculty member.
What is branding and what makes people passionate about it? How
can people develop and maintain a unique online persona? Who are
the current trendsetters in personal branding? What makes social
recruiting so important in today?s business world? Why is it necessary to set up a personal brand strategy early on? What are the future
trends in social recruiting and personal branding?
The rules of recruitment and job searching have undoubtedly
changed with the entry of a new breed of concept workers into the
global workforce. We are witnessing the emergence of a non-agespecific generation of professionals who are exposed to ubiquitous
digital technology and seek a more impactful job, an easy-going life,
and a safe future. Social natives are looking for jobs following strategies that did not exist five years ago. Artificial intelligence, advanced
software, wearable gadgets, and social media define today?s fastpaced professional world.
Social natives use blogs, podcasts, online bios, video r?sum?s,
images, selfies, recommendations, and endorsements to demonstrate their skills publicly. In comparison, global organizations take
advantage of big data, business intelligence, and people analytics, as
well as a plethora of social media screening tools to recruit and retain
great talent. This book will help you understand how social media
recruitment works and encourages you to take personal branding toward professional career development seriously.
Stavros Papakonstantinidis is an assistant professor of strategic
communications and a certified professional for online training. He
has been assigned to be Cedefop?s delegate for EU-related research
projects on the labor market as Greece?s Individual Country Expert.
He received his doctorate in social sciences from the University of
Leicester, his MSc in strategic communications from Ithaca College,
and his BA in communication and mass media from State University
of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz. He has 15 years? experience working in hospitality marketing, public relations, and organizational
communication.
For further information, a
free trial, or to order, contact:
[email protected]
www.businessexpertpress.com/librarians
Digital and Social Media Marketing
and Advertising Collection
Victoria L. Crittenden, Editor
TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF
? Unlimited simultaneous
usage
? Unrestricted downloading
and printing
? Perpetual access for a
one-time fee
? No platform or
maintenance fees
? Free MARC records
? No license to execute
Stavros Papakonstantinidis
Victoria L. Crittenden, Editor
2018. Business Expert Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
Curriculum-oriented, borndigital books for advanced
business students, written
by academic thought
leaders who translate realworld business experience
into course readings and
reference materials for
students expecting to tackle
management and leadership
challenges during their
professional careers.
Personal Branding and Social Media
Recruiting in the Brave New Online World
Digital and Social Media Marketing
and Advertising Collection
Copyright
EBOOKS FOR
BUSINESS STUDENTS
Tell Me About Yourself
PAPAKONSTANTINIDIS
THE BUSINESS
EXPERT PRESS
DIGITAL LIBRARIES
Tell Me About
Yourself
Personal Branding
and Social Media
Recruiting in the
Brave New Online
World
Stavros Papakonstantinidis
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AN: 1938910 ; Papakonstantinidis, Stavros.; Tell Me About Yourself : Personal Branding and Social Media Recruiting in the Brave New Online World
Account: s8426900
Tell Me About Yourself
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Tell Me About Yourself
Personal Branding and Social
Media Recruiting in the Brave
New Online World
Stavros Papakonstantinidis
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Tell Me About Yourself: Personal Branding and Social Media Recruiting in the
Brave New Online World
Copyright ? Business Expert Press, LLC, 2019.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means?
electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for
brief quotations, not to exceed 250 words, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
First published in 2019 by
Business Expert Press, LLC
222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017
www.businessexpertpress.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-63157-523-5 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-63157-524-2 (e-book)
Business Expert Press Digital and Social Media Marketing
and Advertising Collection
Collection ISSN: 2333-8822 (print)
Collection ISSN: 2333-8830 (electronic)
Cover and interior design by S4Carlisle Publishing Services Private Ltd.,
Chennai, India
First edition: 2019
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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Preface
This section at a glance:
? Tell me about yourself
? Opportunities in a brave new online world
? A brief history of the Internet
? The development of social recruiting
? The era of personal branding
? The significance of personal branding
? Reasons to read this book
? The questions this book aims to answer
Tell Me About Yourself
It is one of the most commonly asked questions during job interviews.
Recruiters, hiring managers, or business owners often kick off interviews
with a simple and straightforward question. Is it though? You can start
a friendly conversation with people you would like to meet or catch up
with. When the ?tell me about yourself ? is asked during a job interview, it
can make you sweat. What should you say to demonstrate that you are the
perfect candidate for the job? How much of yourself should you expose to
build rapport with the interviewers and get them to trust you? What do
they want to hear from you?
In a question like this, the recruiter does not want to hear your life
story. The interviewer wants to know how your achievements relate to
the job for which you have applied. Your answer will allow you to demonstrate how much you know about the available job position and the
company?s values. It will also provide you with the opportunity to highlight your skills, experience, and personality. What is more important for
you? How are you going to start answering such question? Will you repeat
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xii
PREFACE
what they already know by reading your resume? Will you try to surprise
them? Remember that the hiring manager wants to hear what makes you
the best candidate for a job. And because usually hiring managers kick off
the job interview by asking this question, it can help you find the right
words to make a great first impression. In other words, the ?tell me about
yourself ? question allows you to brand yourself and bravely sell it most
impressively.
Brand and sell yourself? You may wonder, ?Why should I brand myself?? Personal branding is to publicly answer the ?tell me about yourself ?
question using social media. This book is about personal branding in the
digital era. In Aldous Huxley?s (1932) famous dystopian novel, The Brave
New World, Hatchery?s director and one of his assistants are showing to a
group of young boys the developments in reproductive technology, hypnopedia (sleep-learning), psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning as elements that will profoundly change our society.
Of course, this book is not about Huxley?s world. This book is about
our efforts to stand out in today?s professional world and meet with its
demands to bravely expose ourselves on the Internet. Whether we consider it ethical to do so or not, our brave new online world expects us to
function as brands that are ready to compete in a competitive and adaptive marketing landscape.
Opportunities in the Brave New Online World
The Internet has impacted the way we communicate, share information,
and share and exchange messages. The Internet is not merely a new channel
of communication. Instead, it is a unique environment in which ?people
interact, work, and learn. It has affected a broad spectrum of our daily
activities. The Internet is the context and not merely a tool with limitless
content (Hooley 2012). The Internet has raised social implications, and
it is critical for scholars to explain computer-mediated communication.
The Internet brought to people?s lives a profound change in the
way they search for information and share intelligence. There are over
40,000 search queries posted on Google every second. This translates into
over 3.5 billion daily searches and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide (?Internetlivestats.com 2017). The Internet has become ubiquitous.
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PREFACE
xiii
Personal computers or laptops are no longer the only devices that allow
people to connect online. They used to be, but not anymore. Users can
access the web using mobile devices as well. New technologies emerge
regularly, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), which integrates online
access with purchase of personal accessories (glasses, watches, jackets,
etc.) and domestic appliances (fridges, closets, coffeemakers, etc.; Meola
2018). The dynamic changes due to emerging technologies in the Internet-driven social sphere or the online world are becoming increasingly
visible and recognizable. How people organize their data (e.g., using
cloud computing), how they ask search engines for anything, including
wondering ?Who they are? or ?What to vote,? and the kind of other personal search queries they post have changed completely. There are more
than 1 billion search queries on Google every day. Google reports that
?15 percent of the searches it sees every day have never been seen before.?
In 2010, Google introduced the ?autocomplete? feature. All you have
to do is to write the first few letters of a word, the Google search engine completes the rest and does the search. It suggests possible words
or phrases that might apply to your search based on your frequently
used past search queries. This has led to autocomplete feature yielding
some pretty funny results. For instance, the classic ?what would happen
if . . .? query is able to bring the most unexpected results such as ?what
would happen if the sun exploded?,? ?What would happen if there was no
moon?,? and so on. People ask Google to find them a job, to help them
with their relationships, or to assist them with changing their lives. Also,
people ask Google for advice on their personal branding.
The Internet profoundly affected almost every aspect of social life.
With the use of social media, the lines between private and public life
have blurred. Nowadays, it is quite common for social media?savvy users
to expose their personal moments on platforms like Facebook, ?Instagram,
or Snapchat. Their daily schedule is posted online, so their followers know
where they are, what they are doing, what they like, and how their life
looks like. They see no problem with it. Sometimes they do not have to
post their actual experience when they can fake one. Molloy (2017) reports that a Moscow-based company specializes in renting out a grounded
private jet for professional Instagram photo shoots for those social media
users who wish to satisfy their vanity to get more likes from their followers.
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An interesting and somewhat controversial story of personal branding is that of Dan ?Blitz? Bilzerian, who is commonly known as the
King of Instagram. He demonstrates an enticing and outrageous lifestyle
to over 20 million Instagram followers as a playboy and professional
poker player who hangs out with celebrities and top models. In Ayres?
(2017) story on GQ Magazine, which is titled ?The truth about Dan
Bilzerian,? the reporter questions Bilzerian?s true identity and origin
of wealth. This might as well be another story of an Internet persona
who managed to take full advantage of the existing opportunities in our
brave new online world.
Do we trust the Internet for everything? The report, ?Future of Truth
and Misinformation Online,? reveals that Americans are confused about
what will happen in the future information environment; 51 percent support the statement that the information environment will not improve,
whereas 49 percent say the information environment would become
more trustworthy (Anderson and Rainie 2017). People seem to trust
social media as a more reliable source of information than traditional
media (Ingram 2016). College students use Wikipedia and other free
online sources as educational tools in their academic life. People trust
crowd-sourced readers such as Yelp.com and online platforms such as
Booking.com or Tripadvisor.com for reviews and peer recommendations
before they complete their digital customer journey and decide (Edelman
and Singer 2015).
People use the Internet for entertainment purposes as well. Online
games, music streaming applications, contact-less purchases, online
wallets, web torrents are all examples of online social entertainment behaviors. With the rapid proliferation of e-commerce, scholars start examining the implications of the so-called online currency, Bitcoin, especially
whether or not it can contribute to the actual economy (Holmes 2018).
The new online world is full of surprises and opportunities for people to
stand out from the crowd and make an impact. How do companies take
advantage of the new online environment?
Employer branding, CEO branding, social and mobile recruiting,
millennials? recruiting, talent acquisition and retention, and trust and
transparency are among the most discussed trends and topics in business.
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PREFACE
xv
Glassdoor for Employers (2017) published a statistical guide for recruiters collecting several recruiting and employee engagement statistics from
well-known trend watchers like Deloitte and Gallup. The findings provided in the following demonstrate what drives jobseekers and employees
to apply for a job or cultivate a sense of meaning within their current job
environment.
About 66 percent of millennials expect to leave their organization by
2020. Source: Deloitte, Millennial Survey 2016, January 2016.
? About 39 percent of women say the reputation or brand of the
company is ?very important? to them when considering a job
move. A somewhat smaller percentage of women (32 percent)
say the same about the company?s cause. For 33 percent of men,
the company?s brand is ?very important,? but only 22 ?percent
feel the same about the company?s cause. Source: G
? allup,
Women in America, October 2016.
? As much as 72 percent of CEOs are concerned about the
?availability of key skills. Source: PwC, 19th Annual Global CEO
?Survey, 2016.
? Organizations that invest in employer branding are three times
more likely to make a quality hire. Source: Brandon Hall, The
True Cost of a Bad Hire, September 2015.
? Organizations that invest in a strong candidate experience
?improve their quality of hires by 70 percent. Source: Brandon
Hall, The True Cost of a Bad Hire, September 2015.
? Glassdoor users report they use an average of 7.6 job sites
during their job search. Source: Glassdoor.com Site Survey,
?
?January 2016.
? About 10 percent of the more difficult job interview process is
associated with 2.6 percent higher employee satisfaction later
on. Source: Glassdoor Economic Research, October 2015.
(Glassdoor for Employers 2017)
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xvi
PREFACE
A Brief History of the Internet
The rapid proliferation of the Internet in the early 1990s raised questions in the global business environment. The World Wide Web as a new
communication platform was expected to enhance and facilitate considerable knowledge of humanity, businesses, cultures, and languages. The
first version of the Internet was primarily a nondynamic representation of
information, published by the few users who had access and the recourses
to maintain a website. The dotcom bubble collapse in 2001 signified the
eruption of Web 2.0 as the more interactive version with user-generated
content, which was promising radical changes in the way people use the
World Wide Web. A more interactive version of the network now o? ffers
unlimited access for all, facilitating the emergence of new tools and modes
that have radically altered how business communications are carried out.
Nevertheless, we see rigorous academic debate among those, including
sociologists and academicians, who are opposed to the broader notion of
the Internet as the sine qua non to human interaction.
Amid the sudden transformation of global social processes, the
?Internet has turned out to be a mixed blessing. The Internet functions
as an active channel of communication, which can facilitate compassionate and empathic exchanges across cultures and languages. It signifies the
birth of alternative occupational opportunities at a time when traditional
organizations seem unable to recruit and retain the best minds. On the
other hand, the Internet may also amplify cultural differences as to how
people seek and apply for jobs. As the influence of traditional recruiting channels will be reduced or even vanish, the gap between computer
literates and computer illiterates will be more evident than ever before
(Manafy and Gautschi 2011).
The emergence of online Social Networking Sites (SNS) ushered in
a massive shift in today?s labor market. Human Resources Management
(HRM) models have transformed the scope of employee?employer relationships and ushered radical changes in how people function in a range
of spheres, including in interpersonal, intercultural, organizational, and
mass communication contexts. Millions are logging into SNS every day,
making it hard to calculate with precision the total number of users and
the average time they spend on the Internet.
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PREFACE
xvii
This book looks at how social media is shaping a new reality in
(HRM) processes and the experiences of candidates involved in recruitment. Until recently, the process of seeking a job or recruiting the best
minds made companies either to post their job vacancy on the corporate
website or to post an expensive job advert on the newspapers and online
job boards (i.e., Monster.com). Newer job-posting sites such as Indeed.
com and SimplyHired.com interface with LinkedIn to perform abductive
searches of significant job boards all around the globe, thereby providing
users with a natural, one-stop search.
Traditional recruiting practices will likely continue to decline in
global influence, as social networking websites and other forms of online
HRM business process services are available. Social media already plays
a major role in recruitment and job search. The social media statistics as
presented below are fascinating:
? About 75 percent of male Internet users as well as 83 percent of
female Internet users are on Facebook.
? According to recode, 44 percent of teenagers asked to choose one
social network if ?trapped on a deserted island? chose Snapchat,
ahead of Instagram (24 percent) and Facebook (14 percent).
? Female Internet users are more likely to use Instagram than
men, at 38 percent versus 26 percent.
? As much as 29 percent of Internet users with college degrees
use Twitter, compared to 20 percent with high school degrees
or less.
? About 81 percent of millennials check Twitter at least once per day.
? About 91 percent of social media users are accessing social channels via mobile devices.
? About 22 percent of the world?s total population uses Facebook.
? LinkedIn boasts more than 530 million user profiles.
? On any given day, Snapchat reaches 41 percent of 18- to
34-year-olds in the United States.
? YouTube overall and even YouTube on mobile alone reach more
18- to 34-year-olds and 18- to 49-year-olds than any cable network in the United States.
(continued )
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PREFACE
? Facebook continues to be the most widely used social media
platform, with 79 percent of American Internet users.
? Instagram received the silver medal with 32 percent of users,
with Pinterest coming in a close third with 31 percent, and
LinkedIn and Twitter at 29 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
? The average LinkedIn user spends 17 minutes on the site per
month.
? As much as 51 percent of Instagram users access the platform
daily, and 35 percent say they look at the platform several times
a day.
? Almost 80 percent of time spent on social media platforms happens on mobile.
? Katy Perry has the most worldwide Twitter followers, at
94.65 million.
? Over 400 million snaps are shared on Snapchat per day, and
almost 9,000 photos are shared every second.
? Just 10,000 YouTube videos have generated more than 1 billion
views.
? More than half of all YouTube views are on mobile devices.
? Instagram earns $595 million in mobile ad revenue per year, a
rapidly increasing number.
? About 100 million hours of video content are watched on
?Facebook daily.
? As much as 88 percent of businesses with more than 100 employees use Twitter for marketing purposes.
? The user-submitted YouTube video with the most views is
?Charlie bit my finger? with over 845 million views.
? Pizza is the most widely Instagrammed food, directly ahead of
steak and sushi.
? Blogging continues to grow, with over 409 million people viewing more than 23.6 billion pages each month on WordPress
alone.
(Lister 2018)
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xix
The Development of Social Recruiting
There are currently 467 million LinkedIn users. Of those, 106 million
are actively using LinkedIn monthly, whereas 40 percent of users use
LinkedIn daily, following at least one of the 1.5 million professional
groups on LinkedIn (Domkundwar 2017). LinkedIn is not the only professional networking website. Listed in alphabetical order are the names
of ?several online communities and networking sites where job searchers
and recruiters meet and exchange ideas: AngelList, Bark, Bayt, Beyond,
BranchOut, Data.com Connect, Doostang, EFactor, Jobcase, LocalsNetworking, Lunchmeet, Marketbase, Meetup, Opportunity, PartnerUp,
Plaxo, Sumry, Twylah, VisualCV, Xing, and Zerply.
Although the numbers mentioned previously are still not matching the vast number of professional r?sum?s posted on job sites, soon
?social media will outnumber anything else in the area of recruitment.
The r?eason for SNS? rapid and constant growth is the fact that they are
easier to use and, most important, free of charge. Although SNS first
promised to provide people a social space to meet and chat, they have
turned into a significant boon for HRM specialists (Gibbs, MacDonald,
and MacKay 2015).
Social media is even described as the panacea of communication and
interactivity among the members in the business world. The option by
Facebook to classify our friends based on occupation and schools, as well
as the various professional applications of LinkedIn, the online ?reviews
on Glassdoor, and the growing use of Twitter job feeds, shows that
competition is high and multifaceted. What started as a social trend is
?currently shaping the future of business performance. This transformation begins with recruiting the most talented human capital. Companies
now look for highly qualified recruits, as career seekers are actively using
the SNS.
Employers no longer need to use the paid services of an HRM firm for
the first stage of the recruitment process. Until now, HR managers and
recruiters had to review CVs mailed directly to the company?s offices or
posted online on a job board. Then they would have to screen the information and decide from the two- to three-page profile which candidate
was to qualify for the next round of the recruiting process. With the use
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PREFACE
of social networks, jobseekers have already uploaded online their information as well as academic and professional qualifications. Upon hearing
from prospective employers, candidates may also submit their response
online. Professional recommendations offer ready access for HRM or colleague review. Also, candidates who are building their online personal and
professional profiles can uncover the full identity that will allow them to
pursue their dream career.
Employers now look for candidates with extended networks of interest. Profiles enriched with their pictures, friends, thoughts, affiliations,
and group memberships stand to perform better. A person?s online profile
on LinkedIn offers information in greater depth about his/her professional qualifications than a static piece of paper, and it also provides the
recruiter an opportunity to assess a candidate?s social profile in unguarded
moments.
Even though SNS are poised to completely take over the hiring process, there are still enough number of candidates who do not have an
active presence in social media. So, how can HRM address the needs of
those career seekers who are not using new social networks to look for
career opportunities? What are the ethical issues raised by the growing
demand for people to share their personal thoughts, news, and highlights
publicly? In what way does HRM tackle the growing interest of corporates to overly use social media to recruit best candidates to fill vacant
positions?
It is perhaps effectively argued that continuity in the business environment remains one of the critica