using social media to develop employability

Using Social Mediato Enhance Employability

HEA Employability Staff Development Network Event

Sue BeckinghamSheffield Hallam University

What is Social Media

Social software, software that

supports group communications

Shirky C, 2003

Technologies that enable communication,

collaboration, participation and

sharing.Hughes A, 2009 for JISC

Social Media is

an ecologyfor enabling a "system of people, practices, values and

technologies in a particular local environment"

a medium

for facilitating social connection and information interchange

a tool

for augmenting human social and collaborative abilities

Suter, Alexander and Kaplan, 2005

Social Media: An Ecology

An ecology, habitat, or studio is simply the space for fostering connections. Networks occur within something. They are influenced by the environment and context of an organization, school, or classroom. Certain ecologies are more conducive to forming connections. ... Connection barriers are aspects of an ecology. ... The nature of the ecology influences the ease, type, and health of networks created

(Siemans 2007)

Why Social Media is important

The power of online connections• maintain connections • develop global connections• ongoing 24/7 networking• opportunity to learn and share• ability to be known and found• develop a personal brand• six degrees of separation• recruitment/job seeking

However…. an unprofessional profile can be more damaging than not having one at all.

Increasingly used for recruitment

58.1% of 600 surveyed have successfully recruited through a social network

Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey 2010

http://www.unilever.co.uk/careers/

Jobs and Placements on Twitter

The Guardian Careers Twitter Challenge

#twitterjobchallenge

Blooms Revised

Taxonomy

Creating

Evaluating

Analysing

Applying

Understanding

Remembering

(2001) Anderson and Krathwohl

Lower Order Thinking Skills

Higher Order Thinking Skills

Communication Spectrum

• Collaborating• Moderating• Negotiating• Debating• Commenting• Net meeting, Skyping,

Video Conferencing• Reviewing• Questioning

• Replying• Posting and Blogging• Networking• Contributing• Chatting• E-mailing• Twittering/microblogging• Instant Messaging• Texting

Churches, A. (2009) Blooms Revised Digital Taxonomyhttp://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom%27s+Digital+Taxonomy

Creating

Evaluating

Analysing

Applying

Understanding

Remembering

LOTS Lower Order Thinking Skills

HOTS Higher Order Thinking Skills

designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing, devising, making, programming, filming, animating, blogging, video blogging, mixing, re-mixing, wiki-

ing, publishing, videocasting, podcasting, directing, broadcasting.

checking, hypothesising, critiquing, experimenting, judging, testing, detecting, monitoring, blog commenting, reviewing, posting, moderating, collaborating,

networking, refactoring, testing.

Comparing, organising, deconstructing, attributing, outlining, finding, structuring, integrating, mashing, linking, validating, reverse engineering, cracking, media

clipping.

Implementing, carrying out, using, executing, running, loading, playing, operating, hacking, uploading, sharing, editing.

Interpreting, summarising, inferring, paraphrasing, classifying, comparing, explaining, exemplifying, advanced searches, boolean searches, blog journaling,

twittering, categorising, tagging, commenting, annotating, subscribing.

Recognising, listing, describing, identifying, retrieving, naming, locating, finding, bullet pointing, highlighting bookmarking, social networking, social bookmarking,

favouriting/local bookmarking, searching, googling.

Blooms Revised Digital Taxonomy

Churches, A. (2009)

Solis and Thomas (2009) http://www.theconversationprism.com

Involvement

• Creators• Conversationalists• Critics• Collectors• Joiners• Spectators• Inactives

Online CV/Resume/Portfolio

• Website• Blog• Video• Audio• Photo

Jonathan Frost @Frost_J

Promote Expertise

• Groups• Polls• Q&As

• Communicate updates on personal blog or website

• Raise and answer questions

Developing a Professional Online Presence

!Questions to consider

will find you!

Digital Footprint

“Your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is”

It has the power to influence people to invest (or divest) in you.

(Joel 2009)

Questions to consider

• Who will look at your online profile?• What do people want to know about you?• Where will they use this information?• Why is your profile important?• When and how often do you update it? • How will you use your profile to your

advantage?

LinkedIn

• Include current position, past positions and education

• Add a profile photopeople rarely forget a face !

• Make connections by inviting people already in your trusted network e.g. colleagues and classmates already on LinkedIn and email contacts

Facebook

• Open or ClosedConsider your privacy settings

• It can be more than just a ‘social’ network, it can become part of your own ‘personal learning network’

Sue Beckingham

s.beckingham@shu.ac.uk

http://twitter.com/suebecks(@suebecks)

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/suebeckingham

Credit for images on the first slide:Bruno Maia, IconTextohttp://www,icontexto.comCreative Commons Licence