Being a recent graduate, I am certainly no stranger to the power social media holds over job hunting. Your Twitter and Facebook accounts have suddenly become an extension of your resumé, revealing your personality, your day-to-day antics, and, of course, your friends.
It is not enough to just turn up to an interview on time, or to send off a carefully constructed resumé. Corporations now take the time (and extra care) to find someone that fits in with their culture and share their values.
So, what better way of finding out what a person is like than through their peers?
Digital company R/GA has come up with a rather direct and interesting approach towards job applicant filtration. The Social Interview poses a question on an applicant’s Facebook wall, retrieving opinions from their friends and how they would fare as an employee.
Essentially, this leaves the future of your career in the hands of your social network. The candidness (and presumed remoteness) of online banter opens up a ‘free-for-all’, holding expectations of objective feedback, the 50/50 chance of brutal honesty, and involves a whole lot of trust.
The Social Interview shows us that how we operate on a personal level inevitably ties in with our professional life.This is certainly enough to make me think twice about my online presence as a whole…and who my friends are.
It is an interesting take on HR processes to come, and even though some of us are already taking the necessary steps, this could call for extra vigilance and concern about the things we post, where we have been tagged and who is watching.
A certain balance is to be achieved between censoring ourselves and letting our personalities shine through. We market ourselves everyday, especially when it comes to structuring our own unique spiel in job hunting. Social media offers a direct window to that, but along with it comes the ability to tangibly manage our online presence, or our individual ‘brands’ with more strategic control.
What are your thoughts on the Social Interview? Do you find that developments like these constrict your online persona? Or does it showcase the rise of the open-minded employer?
For more information on managing your online presence, feel free to shoot us your questions at info@whiteecho.com. We would love to hear from you.
@Gwendoot for @WhiteEcho
