Online identity and employability This document discusses how maintaining an online personal brand through social media is now important for employability. It notes that employers are increasingly screening candidates online and rejecting those with unprofessional online profiles. The document provides tips on building an online professional profile through platforms like LinkedIn, as well as case studies and resources for personal branding. Maintaining an authentic and active online presence can help candidates stand out to potential employers in today's digital world.

1. Online identity and employability
Fiona Harvey and Lisa Harris
24th January 2013
LLAS Workshop

2. Fiona Harvey
• Fiona Harvey is an Educational Development
Manager with the Centre for Technology in
Educational Innovation at the University of
Southampton. She is Chair of the Digital Literacies
Special Interest group.
• www.elearning.soton.ac.uk
• www.twitter.com/fionajharvey
• www.linkedin.com/fionaharvey

3. Lisa Harris
• Lisa is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Director of the
MSc programme in Digital Marketing and Co-Chair of
the Digital Economy USRG at the University of
Southampton. She is also an accredited tutor for the
University of Liverpool online MBA programme.
• www.digitaleconomy.soton.ac.uk
• http://lisaharrismarketing.com
• www.twitter.com/lisaharris
• www.slideshare.net/lisaharris
• www.delicious.com/lisaharris1

4. Topics to cover
• You personal online identity
• Employability: what’s changed
• The employer perspective
• Building your professional online profile
• Case study examples
• Satire by the Onion (2 mins)

5. Online Identity

6. Personal identity - Why bother?
And now we have
MOOCs

7. On the internet, no one knows you’re
a dog…

8. Goo.gle [goo-guh l]
verb, Goo.gled, Goo.gling
( often lowercase ) to search the Internet for information
about (a person, topic, etc.): We googled
the new applicant to check her background.

9. Dare you Google yourself...?
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

11. Activities
What do you think about being online?
What are the advantages and challenges of
having an online presence?
http://is.gd/identityactivity
Online Identity calculator
http://www.onlineidcalculator.com/index.php

12. Employability: what’s
changed?

13. Rationale
• Maintaining a personal brand through online and
offline networking is becoming a critical aspect of
career or business development
• It is essential that the information displayed online is
going to encourage rather than discourage potential
customers, collaborators etc.
• This session reviews our ongoing work at
Southampton into the impact of social networking
upon profile building and employability
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

14. 21st Century Careers by JISC
• Competition for employment in a global knowledge
economy
• increased levels of self-employment and portfolio
working
• growth of multi-disciplinary teams focused on specific
tasks whose members might be physically located
anywhere in the world
• life within a networked society
• blurring of boundaries between ‘real’ and
‘virtual’, public and private
• increasingly ubiquitous use of digital technologies.

15. www.employadam.com
• The video
• Why it works

16. The Future of You
“Welcome to a new era of work, where your
future depends on being a signal in the noisy
universe of human capital. In order to achieve
this, you will need to master three things: self-
branding, entrepreneurship, and
hyperconnectivity.”
By Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, in the HBR blog

17. What does this mean?
• Self-branding is about being a signal in the
noise of human capital.
• Entrepreneurship is about adding value to
society by disrupting it and improving the
order of things: it is turning the present into
the past by creating a better future.
• Hyperconnectivity is about being a signal in
the sea of data and making and shaping the
waves of social knowledge.

18. My takeaways
• Self branding is not about “look at me”, but
about “doing great stuff” which others then
amplify on your behalf
• Authenticity is harder to achieve than
buzz, but it is the only differentiator in the
longer term
• Hyperconnectivity is the only really new
factor

19. The employer
perspective

21. Employers will check you out online
• According to a recent study by Cross-Tab Marketing services:
– 75% of HR departments worldwide are required to screen
job candidates online
– 70% of recruiters claim they have rejected potential
employees based on information surfaced online
– 50% say that a strong online reputation influences their
hiring decisions to a “great extent”
• Syracuse University (NYC) has purchased a subscription to
Brand-Yourself.com’s online reputation management platform
for all 4,100 of its graduating students.

22. Flipping the Funnel
• A well defined online presence allows employers
to specify exactly what type of candidates they
are looking for
• candidates can check out company ‘fit’ through
posted video, tweets, blogs, personal interactions
on LinkedIn
• The CV becomes the final stage in the process
rather than the first
• Video drops
• Check out the Hootsuite example

24. Building your
professional profile

25. Using social media to get a job
• Connect (LinkedIn, FB, Twitter)
• Collaborate (Skype, Dropbox, Google Drive)
• Create
(Wordpress, Soundcloud, Pinterest, YouTube/V
imeo)
• Curate (ScoopIt, Delicious, Slideshare)

28. Build & maintain your LinkedIn profile
• Ivan’s presentation highlights the increasingly
central role of LinkedIn for job hunters
• “How to” guides for building your LinkedIn profile
are available here
• Key points for getting started:
– Send a personal message to people you wish to
connect with
– Make sure your profile is 100% complete
– Collect and give recommendations
– Connect your Slideshare and Wordpress accounts into
LinkedIn

29. Case study examples

30. Be creative 
• See Ed Hamilton’s CV on Google Maps
• Jay Foreman’s video history of London’s tube
stations
• The video CV (4mins)

31. How social media has helped my work
• Developing new contacts
• Sourcing newly published articles, calls for papers and relevant
events to attend
• Tracking and commenting on the blogposts of key contributors to
the field
• Keeping in touch, real time, with project participants and other key
contacts
– www.digitaleconomy.soton.ac.uk
– www.about.me/lisa.harris
– www.lisaharrismarketing.com
– www.twitter.com/lisaharris
– www.slideshare.net/lisaharris
– www.delicious.com/lisaharris1
– www.linkedin.com/in/lisajaneharris
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

32. A few notes of caution...
• Ongoing time and effort is required to develop and
maintain online profiles, learn new tools and
ascertain when best to integrate them into the mix.
• F2F brand building elements should not be forgotten
– our research shows that it is not a zero sum
game, good online networkers also tend to be
effective communicators offline.
• As with most things in life, you get out what you put
in, and persistence pays off.
• It is critical to be authentic. An *enduring* personal
brand is not developed by basing it simply on
ego, spin or piggybacking off the work of others...
• Boundaries between ‘business’ and ‘personal’ are
blurring
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

33. Exercise
• What will YOU do after this session to develop
your online profile
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

34. Resources

35. Linchpin
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

36. “Linchpin” by Seth Godin
• It's now more essential than ever to become
indispensable - to become a linchpin.
• Linchpins are essential building blocks: they invent, lead
(regardless of title), connect others, make things
happen, and create order out of chaos.
• If you have you ever found a shortcut that others
missed, seen a new way to resolve a conflict, or made a
connection with someone others couldn't reach, then
you have what it takes to become indispensable.
• It's time to stop complying with the system and draw
your own map (from Amazon review)
• Seth Godin Interview (9 minutes)
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

37. @lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

38. For a comprehensive set of resources on personal branding:
http://www.personalbrandingblog.com
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

39. References
• Harris, L. and Rae, A. (2010) “Building a personal brand
through social networking” Journal of Business Strategy
• Prensky, M. 2009. H. sapiens digital: From digital
immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom. 5 (3).
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id
=705
• Schawbel, D. (2009) Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to
Achieve Career Success
• Vaynerchuk, G. (2009) Crush It!: Why Now is the Time to
Cash in on Your Passion
• Godin, S. (2010) Linchpin: Are you indispensable? How to
drive your career and make a remarkable future
• Brogan, C. and Smith. J. (2009)Trust Agents: Using the Web
to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust
• Mayfield, A. (2010) Me and my Web Shadow
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou

40. Useful Guides
• A blog. Plenty of good advice here:
http://www.slideshare.net/demler1/developing-your-personal-
brand-through-blogging
• Twitter:
– guides can be linked from: http://www.twitip.com/personal-brand-
how-to-build-yours-in-twitter
– www.teachertrainingvideos.com useful beginner guides (by
@russell1955)
– http://www.slideshare.net/richardsedley/twitter-for-marketing-an-
introduction-4639213 (by @richardsedley)
• LinkedIn http://www.thewebpitch.com/social-networking/are-you-
linking-in/
• Jay Foreman’s video history of London’s tube stations
http://tinyurl.com/36rkt7k
@lisaharris #CIMbrandyou