Reference no: EM133213520

Using Social Media for Career Development One of the great advantages of social media is the ease of finding and communicating with people who share a common interest. You can locate old friends from high school or join a group discussing a cause or sports team you're passionate about. Applying that technique to careers, employees can join social-media groups whose members work at the same company or in the same profession. Most likely, those groups will include people who have more experience and knowledge in some areas, giving the online relationships potential as a source of career development. While family and friends certainly can give valuable advice, the main sources of social-media career development will be on career-related sites. These could include a general careers site, such as LinkedIn, which offers millions of groups, or discussion groups on the websites of trade or professional organizations, such as the Society for Human Resource Management. Also, many companies have set up their own social-media tools for employees only. These are especially useful in large companies with operations around the world. To make the most of any of these sites, employees should think about how to be valuable participants. That includes learning the rules and etiquette. For example, rather than using the site just to get help, one should also offer help. Expressing ideas in a positive manner creates a positive image. And to help people find your ideas and areas of interest, learn to use hashtags, adding the pound sign (#) to generate links to relevant key terms or ideas. People who become known as polite, helpful, value-adding members of a social-media group do more than gain knowledge from their peers and senior members of the group. They also foster relationships that can lead to more in-depth conversations, both online and offline. Their names are more likely to turn up in searches for candidates to take on stretch assignments or interview for job openings. And when employees take on a stretch assignment that requires assembling a team, those with a strong social-media network have an edge in locating the best people.

Questions

1) Describe a few possible advantages of using social media to offer ideas and advice rather than just asking for help and information.

2) Suppose you work in the HR department of a consumer products company and are interested in making a lateral move to another department as a way to develop your career. Your company has a social-media site where employees can search for co-workers with particular interests, experience, and skills. How might you use that site to plan your lateral move?