Social Networking

Social networking is a powerful tools for the corporate world. In today's job market you have to learn how to use social networking if you are hoping to get a job. You cannot just use the traditional ways of finding a job like looking in a newspaper for postings or replying to postings online. If you want to increase your chances of being employed you should put profiles on several social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. In the article Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt says

"Professional recruiters have started hunting for job candidates using social networking technology — like the kind found on the popular sites MySpace and Facebook."

"Maureen Crawford-Hentz recruits for Osram Sylvania, the global lighting company. She says the new tools have changed her life. "Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting — ever."One of Crawford-Hentz's favorite sites is Linkedin, a network of 8 million professionals spread across the world. Linkedin says users include executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies. Typing keywords into a search engine, Crawford can scrape the entire network to dig out high-quality candidates that she can't find elsewhere." Linkedin has become the go to place to find employment and for employers to find viable candidates. If you are linked on the site to people on the site then they can put you in touch with someone else that might be in the company that you want to be in. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf  It's way better than cold calling!

 

 

The downside to social networking is that sometime people put too much of their information about themselves out there. In the article

"BBB: New Wave of Phishing Scams Uses Facebook Info for Personalized Spam"

"Scammers are tapping into the personal data available through Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn to pose as your friends in fraudulent emails. Watch out for these personalized scam messages and take steps to prevent them. Scammers find your information through Facebook or other social media accounts. Some set up fake accounts and send out friend requests. When you accept the request, they can view your friends and personal and contact information. Other scammers rely on social media users not locking down their privacy settings, so basic information, such as your name, email address and friends' names, is publicly available."  This the dark side of social networking.  They are always going to be predators out there that are patrolling social networking sites to see what you post. Another dark side is that when people post their every waking moment on social networks like Facebook they are also giving the predators a map of their every move. When someone posts that they are on vacation that lets predators know that no one is home and they can burglarize your home without interruption! You have to also be careful about pictures you post on Facebook or other social networking sites because potential employers can search for them on the internet and deny you employment because of what they deem inappropriate pictures on they find. Also colleges are now perusing social networking sites to research potential students during the application process. They use this to put together a profile and decide if you are a candidate for admission to their school. You can also potentially lose any form scholarship or be expelled from you college if you have inappropriate activity on your social networking sites. On social networking you have to be careful of what you put out there. In the future, social networking is going to be a key marketing tool for businesses and a communication tool that we use. I think that eventually there will be no way to do business without having a social networking presence.