Avoiding the Top 5 Mistakes Job Seekers Make Online

Many job hunters that are ex-online students are familiar with using the internet for educational purposes and taking advantage of it for job seeking is a natural step. Just try to avoid the top 5 mistakes job seekers make online.

1. Avatar or Picture Is Not Appropriate Your avatar or picture speaks volumes about your personality. People with pictures that are inappropriate or unprofessional will not become the future employees, so be creative in order to get noticed land a career.

2. Not Using Industry Buzzword and Jargon on Their Profile These days you must include industry buzzwords and jargon on your profile. Recruiters and hiring managers use these phrases and keywords to search for profiles online. Therefore, your profile must be search engine optimized for your industry or it will not be seen.

3. Not Being Involved In Industry Related Forums, User Group, Blogs, and Social NetworksTo be noticed involve yourself in industry related online networks. Leave comments on blogs that people in your industry visit. Ask questions. Participation insures job seekers will be noticed online. Sitting back and observing will not make you the employee of the future!

4. Unprofessional Profile Invites Profile invites that are unprofessional and spammish are automatically declined by hiring managers and recruiters do not consider such applications seriously.

5. Not Reviewing and Updating Your Profile Your profile should be routinely updated with new qualifications and certifications. It must also be reviewed for mistakes and miscues. An unblemished profile is a must have to land a career and projects a professional image to potential employers.

A former online student’s internet profile is an extremely significant means of drawing attention to their accomplishments, strong points and main areas of vocational skills. A profile is systematically arranged in a format that is easy for hiring managers that in turns will lead to interviews. Self-promotion and the internet just seem to go together so make online job searches work for you just as many employees have. Online social networking sites are a natural extension for an online student. Using online networking to your advantage to get the career you desire. Just make an effort to keep yourself away from the top 5 mistakes job seekers make online.

Women Empowerment in Social Media

Social media develops a forum for women all over the world to share their knowledge with others in a different corner of the globe. This generates a sense of oneness; as more women are inclined to be in touch and correspond without restraint, knowing that it is universal fight that intersects local or geographic boundaries.

Social community provides women a way of impacting others with ‘empowerment ideologies’ as well as strategies. This makes it not merely a forum for sharing experiences, but also for enlightening other women in general who perhaps going through the same circumstances, but do not know the way to deal with it nor have the guts to speak their mind.

The experience of a social media can transform to an instantaneous ‘action forum’. It is encouraging to share individual experiences; it is better when these narratives teach those who are unaware of the trends that affecting them or how to act in response; but it is best when women going through any type of difficulty are helped by this sort of contact. Social media can guide women to gather together and make a start, either by means of inter-personal social networking or as a group.

Social Media Indicates Opportunities for Women

Companies are trying to reach women, whether as customers, entrepreneurs, workers or campaigners. They have an extraordinary opportunity by means of social media to connect them. For women, social media brings rich opportunities to move ahead, cause transformation, innovate, and build associations across sectors, locally, nationwide, as well as worldwide.

Women have securely established their presence on the social media, and make up the mainstream of users on a lot of popular social media websites. The question is what does this indicate for the future of women in social media? There is a one word answer to this question, and that is ‘Opportunity’.

Dating back to the late 1800 distance education is associated with online education. In 1996, founders Glenn Jones and Bernard Luskin created the first accredited online university, called Jones International University. Since the inception of distance learning, online learning has grown in popularity and has given traditional campus learning a run for its money. Now distance learning is fully functional and attractive to millions of students nationwide. Online schools have come a long way and will continue to move forward in the right direction.

The future of Online Education

Reports show that online education grew 13 percent last year and had been growing at about 20 percent in previous years. According to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, online education is a growing industry in the United States with estimated revenues of around $12 billion at a dozen or so for-profit companies that provide primarily online learning.

Transformation of Online Education

Richard Garrett of Boston consultant Eduventures Inc. said interest in online education may have plateaued for now, awaiting innovations that will transform the experience beyond screen imitations of the brick-and-mortar curriculum.

“We are still at a pretty rudimentary stage,” Garrett said, noting educators rarely employ video, unique links, or other technological innovations.

“Will it be games? Will it be simulations? Will it be social networking? Will it be something we haven’t yet come across?” he said.

Evolution of Online Education

Online education has evolved over the years and continues to explode at all school levels. Even though there have been a lot of changes in online education some things have remained the same. The majority of online courses are organized in much the same way as their campus counterparts. As a matter of fact, most online schools are an extension from the brick-and-motor institutions. In order to remain competitive, most online schools follow traditional academic standards and are accredited by reputable accrediting agencies.

Online Education meeting the needs of Everyone

Online education trend is likely to increase as more and more higher education institutions harness the capabilities of technology to reach a wider audience of student nationwide with online courses and degree programs to fit students’ needs. Today, many online institutions have learned that over time online courses will help to free up classroom space for other courses that might better utilize campus facilities, while providing easy access to online education for those who cannot attend on-campus classes.

A recent study commissioned among human resource professionals and recruiters revealed that 32% of them actually search the internet and social networking sites such as Facebook for potential employees. The study also showed that of the remaining 68%, another 48% showed an indication they would take that route of Facebook search in the future.

Facebook offers efficient job search

With over 200 million active users, Facebook has become a serious contender for the most popular social networking site in the world. With this knowledge, recruiters target Facebook to find employable individuals based on their posted profile. The profile of Facebook users gives an immediate insight into the personality of individuals and their interest. As a result, recruiters can do targeted search by entering certain keywords that brings up only individuals of a particular area of interest. By using Facebook, they can increase their efficiency by eliminating the practice of wild searching to find that perfect employee.

Brand You-How to Capitalize of Facebook

Your profile is the pathway between you and the recruiter. Pump up your profile that recruiters can automatically attracted to you. Treat yourself as a company and you are marketing a product, which is you of course, to the public. Include all professional information such as contact details, qualification, capabilities, extra-curricular activity and work experience if any.

One of the main forces of attraction for recruiters is the use of keywords. Do a Google search for keywords related to your profession and ensure that these words are included into your Facebook profile. This will enable your profile to be at the top of the heap when the recruiter does their Facebook search.

Another job-seeking tool available on Facebook is the opportunity to setup your own group. Jobseekers can easily establish a group that targets individuals with similar interest. Numbers bring power, so by knowing that a large group of individuals exists in a particular group, they can easily go there instead of open searching in order find potential employees.

Job seekers can also make their own websites or blogs where they can display their talents. They can then create a link on Facebook. When any one visits their Facebook page, they can easily click on this link to visit their personal site.

Facebook Video Upload

The video upload tool available on Facebook is a powerful tool that can tilt the employment scale in your favor. Facebook allows you to upload a video resume that will be a face-to-face introduction of yourself to your potential employer. This video resume must be professionally done, as recruiters will use this introduction to conduct their preliminary assessment. One thing for sure, a video resume shows a concerted effort to present yourself in a professional manner.

Many individuals are turning to social networking to find new jobs as they create a more interactive atmosphere in which employers can get an idea of applicants even before they decide to call them for submission of personal information.

How to use Social Networking to get Jobs

To be successful at using social networking to land jobs, one has to be smart and proactive. It takes diligent planning and patience. Not all methods will work in any one case, but by combining strategies, I am sure you can get the brand “you” out there in the public domain.

Be active on Twitter: With the availability of unlimited twitter tools more and more jobseekers are using twitter as a means of reaching out to recruiters and potential employers. This phenomenon is due to several factors. For starters, twitter is free and reaches millions of individuals worldwide. Then, when registering on Twitter, you must first fill out a profile that is a short bio on your location and interest. Recruiters can easily go to this link and read this bio and determine right there if they are interested. By growing your number of followers, by just clicking “need a job” you will get many responses of job opportunities in your fields.

Video Resume: Making a video resume and placing it on YouTube is another way of reaching millions for free. Be professional, concise and confident, as you will be speaking directly to your potential employers.

Using LinkedIn: LinkedIn is one of the most popular search engines where individuals can go to seek out employment opportunities. LinkedIn is 100% free and is utilized by many top professionals. Individuals simply complete the membership application by supplying the requisite information. Then the import all their contact from other social networking sites to build their contact list. Paying for a premium account brings you even closer with recruiters who are in direct contact with employers.

Google has finally broken into the world of social networking. Not to say they did not have social networking sites before. Their social networking sites such as Orkut or OpenSocial were not such a hit within the online social networking community. With these sites, they were following the same mold of Facebook and Twitter who fan base started from scratch and then grew with popularity.

What Google have now done is simply a stroke of genius. They have embedded Google buzz into their Gmail service. As a result, the fan base is already existent and studies show is growing at an average 176 million visitors each month. Although Google buzz is new, its impact is huge as users of the service gave access to all the gadgets of the Gmail service including streaming of status updates, links, videos and buzzes. To fathom the impact of Google Buzz, one would have to imagine cramming Twitter, Yammer, Yelp, Facebook and Foursquare into one social network.

Uses of Google Buzz in Education

The open source approach that Google has adopted in the development of Google Buzz has increased the excitement level in the secondary application development market. The flexibility of Google Buzz has brought with it many useful applications outside of the direct social networking world. After close examination, we have seen where Google Buzz has many ways in which it can be incorporated into the educational system. Some of these methods include:

• Users of Google Buzz are able to conduct Facebook and twitter like conversations. Students can use this forum to communicate easily with their peers without having to sign into another social networking site while checking their Google mail. They can even throw open questions much like a Facebook status message but with a more interactive flavor.

• Being embedded into Google Gmail service, teachers can easily conduct research on any topic without losing sight of the happenings of fellow teachers and linked students.
• With Google Buzz, teachers are now able to maintain a closer relationship with their online students.Teachers can now easily with one application use their Gmail embedded Google Buzz to disseminate and collect assignments and then make immediate comments either generally or to specific students. This will certainly reduce the hard copy paper work at school, as all messages can be easily stored on request.
• Unlike Twitter, with Google teachers are able to select who can see particular buzz they upload. Therefore, if they want to address only a part of the class you can do so using Google buzz without fear of general exposure.
• Google buzz has brought with it an easier method of promoting ideas or items to the public. This is a great opportunity for research doctors at universities to promote their ideas. What Google has done is to give users of the Google buzz the ability to make public posts that are included into their general Google search engine. As a result, professors only have to include keywords that will attract traffic and direct this traffic to your post.

Do you know about social networking sites? Well, if you don’t, you shouldn’t feel bad because not so many people are even aware of the concept of social networking sites. Social networking sites are online platforms where you contact your friends online through the site. Online information about your availability and sharing of photos makes your virtual life closer to reality. In addition to regular social networking websites, professional networking websites are also available and allow for the interaction of professionals and sharing of professional opportunities.

Employers and Your Social Networking Profile – Is there even a need?

While social networking had previously been used only for casual reasons, it has becomes a source for prospective employers to know more about candidates who have applied for positions with their company. In fact it is being said that many companies are keeping track of their employees through these social networking websites.

There are cities where candidates applying for city jobs are required to give their usernames and passwords for any of their social networking websites including their chat room passwords. The concern among job seekers is whether such requirements are legal and how far it should be complied with as it amounts to invasion of privacy.

While it is true that employers object certain activities of their prospective candidates like illegal behavior, offensive statements and instances of bad mouthing, it is most unlikely that such a behavior can be traced through social networking websites.

Social Networking Profiles in Working Environment…

While some find referring to social networking websites offensive, some like Jon Yarbrough, partner at Constangy, Brooks & Smith law firm are of the view that there nothing wrong about it. In some states, it has even become a law that it is no employers’ business to check out what an employee is up to after office hours.

While the general law is that you can do anything and everything lawful during your non-office hours, the question is whether the law covers even applicants to jobs and what really matters to employers about what an employee is engaged in non-office hours where there is nothing unlawful.

You may never know what is in store, so it is best to clean up your profiles, just to ensure nothing will cost you a dream job. It is also possible to create two profiles, one for personal use and the other for employers to see as a public face.

Do you think sharing personal information with your prospective employers is a good idea? Should we be more open about it? Or this is just another way to breach into someone’s privacy? ]]> http://www.onlineedublog.com/social-networking-profiles-employers-privacy/feed/ 0 http://www.onlineedublog.com/facebook/ http://www.onlineedublog.com/facebook/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:36:10 +0000 admin http://www.onlineedublog.com/?p=656

When the president of the United States of America gave a ‘Back to School’ speech this year, he warned the children to be careful when using Facebook, the world’s biggest social networking website.

Nearly one-third of the employers use Facebook to check out about you before hiring you. So if you are going to post pictures of your ‘other ‘side on this public network it might cost you your dream job and a fat pay check. So think before you act.

However there are so many little things you can do to protect yourself at Facebook. Most non-tech savvy people don’t understand these features. So, they are explained in simple terms to you below:

i) Make Different Lists of Persons

Whenever you add someone to your Facebook Contacts List, categorize them as Work, Family or Friends. Even Friends can be categorized as Acquaintances, for those you are not very close with and friends, for those whom you share a close relationship with. This is very important as then you can fix who will view what and who will not have access to your personal stuff.

ii) Settings of Privacy

At the top right corner, you have a tab called ‘Settings‘. Click this and you will get the option ‘Privacy Settings’. When you click on that, you can set who can see what on your Facebook profile. For example, when you set ‘Only Friends’, only your friends can view it, ‘My Networks and Friends’ allows anyone in your network to view it.

iii) Address and Phone Number

When you click on ‘Privacy Settings, in the ‘Settings’ button, you will come across a tab called ‘Contact Information’. Click on it. You can allow/ block people whom you want/ don’t want to view this information.

iv) Search

Sometimes you just don’t want others to catch you on Facebook especially some old disgusting school friends and nosy parkers from office. For this, you can click on settings on the main Facebook homepage. Then click ‘Search’. You then land on a ‘Search Privacy’ page where you can set who can find you on Facebook. You can click on ‘Friends of Friends’, ‘My Networks and Friends’ or ‘Only Friends’ depending on the level of privacy you want to maintain. Also you can control what will show up when your profile shows up in search.

v) Don’t Share Personal Information with unknown applications

There are umpteen numbers of quizzes and games on Facebook that can access your personal information and also your friend’s personal information. You can put a stop to this. Take the mouse over to ‘Settings’ tab and choose ‘Privacy Settings’ and click it. Then click ‘Applications’ and click on the tab that says ‘Settings’. Then you can choose what your friends can view and cannot view about you. This only sets for your friend’s applications. For the applications you are using, this is not applicable. So, it would be best to remove those ones you are not using.

These five steps can surely create a much better and safer environment for you to network and chill-out on Facebook.