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MySpace, YourSpace, Everyone's Space... Can Profile Content Impact Job Search?

In my Web travels this week, I came across a few press releases, career-related columns and trend-related reports discussing online recruiting, the next generation of tech-savvy job seekers and employer/potential employee branding.  Branding in this digital context refers to how someone portrays herself via Web sites, blogs, social networking sites, etc.

Many organizations and groups have already discovered MySpace as a recruitment tool, including the Marines.  And just as companies must carefully consider how they represent themselves online, job seekers should remember one thing: public domain.

Consider this stat:  “According to a 2005 survey by ExecuNet, an executive job search and networking organization, 75 percent of recruiters use search engines to uncover information about job seekers.  Additionally, 26 percent have admitted to eliminating candidates due to information they discovered online.”  Read more here.  In other words, just as an insightful blog that showcases your education, skills and past projects may put you ahead in the hiring game, a networking site profile filled with profanity, racy photos and the like may result in a potential employer pressing the “delete” key.  Is it fair that candidates, who may have stellar references and skills on the professional front, be judged based on off-hours MySpace profile musings and journal entries? Fair or not, it’s reality as everything/everyone is searchable.

Something else to consider…  We know that employers can’t ask interviewees certain personal questions (age, marital status, etc).  But much of this information can be obtained via social networking site profiles.  And with the viral nature of new media and the Web, once it’s online, your blog post may be re-posted many times over.  My prediction: More and more MySpace users (not just teens) will set their profiles to “private,” meaning only approved “friends” can access their complete profile.

In the Good Old PR Time

“PR in the Internet Age: Same As It Ever Was?” asks BusinessWeek’s Rob Hof while commenting on Robert Scoble’s complaint that Google passed up the blogosphere and briefed only a few, mostly print, news outlets on Google Apps for Your Domain.

Writes Hof: “It does seem ironic that the world’s most prominent Internet company – one that’s specifically trying to get us all to do our work online instead of on the desktop – chose to brief mostly print publications. Maybe I should be glad even Google thinks print matters. But for such an innovative company, the tactic sure looks like a throwback.”

Well, yes, PR is the same as ever. While we often focus on how new technologies are changing the way we communicate and do business, good PR pros will use any technology and any technique they think will be most effective. Doing what’s expected – even if it's usually effective or very cool –  is not required or necessarily the best strategy, and employing a “throwback” can itself generate buzz – witness all the attention Google’s strategy is getting. In fact, by its willingness to comment on everything, the blogosphere continues to create more opportunities not just to innovate but also to experiment.

Take a look at “Street Stunts On The Digital Highway” and the power of blogs to turn a street corner billboard into a media event.

Unbranding the Word "Brand"

See William Safire's mini-history of one of the most trusted yet overused words in marketing. He concludes:

In a world where the words new and fresh are relentlessly repeated on every product label, the name of the sales technique is getting old and stale. Where is the ad-Übermensch, the creative Ogilvy, who will put forward a new moniker for the name of the atmospheric marketing game? The time has come, as John Kerry puts it, to unbrand the word brand.