Exploring digital professionalism

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Remember me? Steps towards personal brand management

I found this weeks seminar drew on a current personal concern; managing the transition between student and professional life. Pre-seminar reading and seminar discussion lay out critique concerning personal branding (Lair et al, 2005), the flow of information (LaBreque et al, 2011) and the benefits of personal branding (Ward and Yates, 2013). The issue that I felt mostly resonated with me was how could I, at the point of transition from a student identity to a professional identity, begin to create a concise personal brand (PB).  

Groskop commented, “Everyone from a potential employer to a prospective blind date can check out our brand online” (2008, p.28). This statement is broad and provided a good starting point for thinking about PB management. It’s not a new insight, but this statement is particularly significant as a student transitioning into the workplace because it highlights the importance of remembering the potential reach of my PB. This also raises issues previously looked at in the module concerning the blurred boundaries between professional and personal identity.

Once I considered whom my PB could potentially reach I began creating a PB by asking how I perceive myself, how others perceive me, and how I want to be perceived. Wallas (2007) argued that consistent branding lends itself to an effective and powerful brand. I wanted to begin building a brand that encompasses my characteristics, values and interests. My online brand should be non-conflicting with my offline self to ensure consistency. In order to ensure a consistent online and offline PB I used feedback from the seminar task and sought feedback from an industry professional, asking them what values my current digital footprint currently conveys. The qualities associated with me were intelligence and creativity. I have used these two values to become the foundation of my PB that I will continue to develop and manage. This builds on the issue learnt in previous weeks that managing online presence is crucial in the digital age. 

The next step in creating my PB was to consider the most appropriate platform on which to showcase my PB. I have chosen to create a ‘landing page’ so that employers can find my accounts in one place and showcase my PB. In the future to ensure my page appears on Google searches I can incorporate key terms. I will also link this landing page to my LinkedIn profile and display it on my CV. In order to have a consistent PB, I must continually ensure that the brand reflected on my landing page is echoed by the pages it links too. Hernez-Broome et al. critique that often promoting yourself can be considered as ‘brownnosing’ (2009, p.18). I disagree with this criticism. I believe that in such a competitive employment market where I am responsible for communicating myself, my achievements and values to potential employers, a concise and clear PB will ensure I am remembered and recognised for the right reasons. The more time I invest into managing my personal brand I believe I will develop a concise and clear personal brand online that helps manage my transition from student to professional.

Groskop, V. (2008). Brand me! New Statesman, pp.28-29. Hernez-Broome, G. et al. (2009). Showcasing Your Talent with Authenticity. Leadership in Action. 29(4), pp.18-22.

Labrecque, L. et al. (2011). Online Personal Branding: Processes, Challenges and Implications. Journal of Interactive Marketing. 25(1), pp.37-50.

Lair, D. J., Sullivan, S. and Cheney, G. (2005). Marketization and the recasting of the professional self: The rhetoric and ethics of personal branding. Management Communication Quarterly: McQ. 18(3), pp. 307 – 343.

Wallas, L. (2007). Promote Brand You. Nursing Standard, 22(10), p.64.

Ward, C., and Yates, D. (2013). Personal branding and e-professionalism. Journal of Service Science and Management. 6(1), pp.101-104.

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What do they want? Exploring 'cybervetting,' a complicated contradition between personality and professionalism

This seminar built upon knowledge concerning the blurring of boundaries between the personal and professional life online. 'Cybervetting' is the process of using the Internet to gather information on potential employees (Berkelaar, Scacco and Birdsell, 2014). However, the information gathered by employers was not necessarily shared or intended for them (Solove, 2008).

It is no surprise that the Internet has fuelled the practice of 'cybervetting.' Previously employers would evaluate potential employees through CVs, but now they have a wealth of information online about a person's identity and non-work context. Employers have long wanted this type of information to develop an understanding of personality, but it has never been cost or time effective to seek (Berkelaar and Buzzanell, 2015). The internet and ubiquitous nature of online activities have changed this. While the desire to seek may not be new, fulfilling it is.

Berkelaar and Buzzanell (2015) argue that employers use social media pages to evaluate professionalism amongst other aspects of personality. Zurich (2014) commented that personality is attractive on profiles. There seems to be a large contradiction here; do employers want personality or professionalism?

Social media platforms are places where users can asynchronously manage and display their personal appearance and identity. For me, the importance of personal should be stressed. These sites are places upon which people should be able to reveal their personal identity. From talking to classmates, my peers are beginning to manage and 'lock-down' the way they use social media. They are taking measures such as keeping a close eye on privacy settings and changing profile names. Limiting the amount of personal information that is shared. When employers are 'cybervetting', they are looking to see the personality that is being locked down in favour of professionalism. I have even fallen victim to 'cybervetting' myself to ensure I give off the 'right' image before an interview. Employers are looking for evidence of an electable personality with a curated public image and values alignment (Berkelaar and Buzzanell, 2015). While employers seek such information, it also seems like the beginning of a journey to an online everyman population where people are afraid to harness social media platforms and be themselves.

Therefore, I began considering what I could loose and what I could gain from an increasingly managed digital profile. Initially, I felt I would need to enlist a tradeoff between my personal and professional life. However, I realised this need not be the case. My personal interests are aligned with the industry I hope to work in, I am not part of any extremist groups and don't hold any similar views, overall I feel I have a good understanding and sense of who I am. While I am going to manage my digital relationships more carefully and use LinkedIn to develop professional connections and a professional profile. I feel that my social media pages are appropriate to my personal life and although I have utilised privacy settings, any information on my SM pages I feel is not detrimental to my future career.

Berkelaar, B. L., & Buzzanell, P. M. (2015) Online Employment Screening and Digital Career Capital Exploring Employers’ Use of Online Information for Personnel Selection. Management Communication Quarterly : McQ . 29(1), pp.84-113

Berkelaar, B. L., Scacco, J. M., & Birdsell, J. L. (2014). The worker as politician: How online information and electoral heuristics shape personnel selection and careers. New Media & Society. pp.1-20.

Solove, D. J. (2008). Understanding privacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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The insiders info: blogging my way to employment

I have had opportunities, through industry experience, to talk with professionals regarding digital presence. However, it was not until this module, that I have had an opportunity to reflect properly upon the advice given to me. The advice I was given from these industry professionals, which was reiterated to me this week, was the extent to which digital platforms can aid career success. This also built upon the knowledge gained from previous weeks surrounding the migrating context of career to the digital. Reflecting on advice given to me from this week and previous meetings with industry professionals have emphasised to me the importance of savvy digital media use to showcase myself and my skill set.

Both representatives from Northern Lights PR and Bubble Jobs stressed the value and importance of blogging. The entire Internet is available for professional development, and the 'Blogosphere' is rapidly expanding. While I read fashion, beauty and nutrition blogs, the thought of starting my one has never appealed to me mainly as I don't feel knowledgeable enough about any one particular subject. Both representatives advised that starting a blog about everything and anything will not aid my career in the way I want it too. What I have learnt is that in order to utilise the blogosphere to my advantage I need to determine a specific focus and grow to become an expert in that particular field.

Starting a blog will help showcase my skills and most importantly passions that I have. Blogging is a form of self-publishing that can be utilised to network and to gain connections while showcasing my interests. I have begun to think about my career interests and starting a blog around this. For example, I am interested in working in social media and PR. I could begin to blog about excellent social media and PR campaigns and why they stood out to me. Including a blog on my CV would show to potential employers that I have a serious interest in the field and have begun immersing myself in the world of social media and PR. While I was aware of the growing relevance of blogs, I had never critically thought about utilising the platform for my professional development.

A brand new insight that I gained this week was from Victoria Tomlinson from Northern Lights PR. She invited us to 'think like a search engine'. By this, she was asking us to consider how employers would use search engines to look for potential employees. While I have previously googled my name to discover which of my social media profiles employers will be able to find. I have never considered using keywords that employers would use when searching for potential employees to see if I have a presence in their results. In the future, I will consider this when looking and applying for jobs. I will also use this advice to tailor my online profiles, such as LinkedIn, to ensure that I am visible to my potential employers.

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A changing context for career

Previously, it was established that there is debate surrounding the blurring of boundaries between professional and personal lives online. Building upon this, and reinforcing the argument that managing online presence is crucial, this post looks at how existing research regarding digital career literacy can be applied positively to my career development. Discussion this week focused around the 7 Cs of digital career literacy. Hooley (2012) explores the relationship between career development and online technology, identifying seven elements for developing digital career literacy that make up the 7 Cs: changing, collecting, critiquing, connecting, communicating, creating and curating. 

As a third year student I am beginning to think about entering the labour market and before this weeks seminar I felt I had a good level of digital literacy and an understanding of how I could utilise the Internet to develop my career. I felt I could strongly relate to all aspects of the 7 Cs. Through studying New Media, I felt I had a particularly good understanding of the ‘changing’ aspect. While Bernadette John presents a very critical argument on the effect of social media on career development, I feel that I manage my online presence well and can utilise online platforms to project an image of myself that I am happy with. I also felt I was quite aware of changing technologies and could label myself digitally literate. However, studying the 7 Cs has caused me to realise that where I thought I had a strong understanding of the ‘changing’ aspect, thinking of myself as digitally literate is not enough.

Studying the 7 Cs made me realise I failed to consider the impact of changing technology and the indirect consequences of this when in the workplace. My career goal is working in the social media and PR industry. While I am aware that online presence may help or hinder employment opportunities, I had never thought about the wider impact of changing technology on any job I take. If I decide to work in business-to-business PR, then an understanding of the changing role of technology would be imperative. Debates surrounding technology/machinery replacing a manual workforce are increasingly relevant to this industry and could indirectly affect my career. Studying ‘changing’ has made me more aware about issues that are wider than my university experience of technology and has also made me recognise that I need to develop a wide awareness of industry debate to showcase my commitment to the industry to employers. I will continue to acquaint myself with new platforms and technologies through my degree and will also begin develop a deeper awareness of industry debate and tensions through reading industry blogs and magazines.

Exploring the 7 Cs has made realise areas of weakness and strength when evaluating my digital literacy. In order to utilise the Internet for career building it is important that I make use of all the opportunities available to me and believe that by using the 7 Cs as a framework of evaluation I can evaluate and improve my digital literacy.

Hooley, T. (2012). How the internet changed career: framing the relationship between career development and online technologies. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (NICEC) 29.

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Personal and professional lives online: the degrading of distinct identities

As an introduction to the module, we had a general discussion concerning online presence. Discussion was framed around the video “Digital Professionalism – Preparing students for the workplace” by Bernadette John. The most prominent issue that arose during the discussion was the blurring of boundaries between personal and professional lives. Citizens now find themselves situated in an “always-on” environment (Goggin, 2011) where digital media and specifically social networking sites (SNS) are pervasive and ubiquitous. Facebook is just one example, with 1.35 billion monthly active users (Digital Market Ramblings, 2015). While citizens have a more connected social life than ever before; there are also professional benefits. A global network of blogs and information can be a resource for digital professionals to spread good practice (Scott, 2013).

Unfortunately, these newfound opportunities for citizens to present themselves online has created a tension between the personal and the professional. Pre-Web 2.0 people could keep their personal and professional lives separate, but the advent of social media has blurred this boundary. For example, Fogel and Nehmad (2009) argued that users of social networks displayed ‘risk-taking’ behaviours such as sharing personal and private information about themselves and others, which would not be revealed in daily life. It is also easy to forget that any information being put online has a global audience, and once it is out there, it can be very difficult (if not impossible) to remove.

Paris Brown found herself at the centre of this debate and falling foul of these tensions in 2013 (BBC, 2013).  Brown was appointed as the UK’s first youth police and crime commissioner (YPCC) in 2013. However, not even a week after being elected, Brown resigned from the role. Her resignation came due to an investigation by Police over tweets considered anti-gay and racist. The tweets from Brown were posted between the ages of 14 and 16, a whole year before she was appointed as YPCC.

I  felt that the discussion raised has given me new knowledge around the sheer scope of the debate. I was not aware that the information you broadcast at a younger age can impact so greatly on an adult career. I was also not aware that employers are now asking for you to give them directly your social media pages. Reflecting upon this I would feel that such a request is a direct invasion of privacy. On the other hand, my future career is in the media industry, and an active social media presence is expected. As a result of what I have learnt I have made a conscious decision to allow the blurring of my personal and professional life. I am going to investigate privacy settings on all of my social media pages and make more refined choices about the content I upload to my social networks. Although I feel that this is blurring the roles of different aspects of my identity I would rather this than posting content that could be harmful to my professional life and future.

BBC. (2013). Paris Brown: Kent youth PCC resigns after Twitter row. [Online]. [Accessed: 26th January 2015]. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22083032

Digital Marketing Ramblings. (2015). By the Numbers: 200+ Amazing Facebook User Statistics. [Online]. [Acessed: 26th January 2015]. Available from: http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/by-the-numbers-17-amazing-facebook-stats/

Fogel, J. and Nehmad, E. (2009). Internet social network communities: risk taking, trust and privacy concerns. Computers in Human Behaviour. 25(1), pp.153-160.

Goggin, G. (2011). Going Mobile. In: The Handbook of Media Audiences. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, pp.128- 147.

Scott, G. (2013). Social media is blurring professional boundaries. Nursing Standard. 25(52), pp.1.