I used to think about myself as a good user of technology in general, in internet communication, and information searching techniques, but I did not take care of my electronic professional image! This was for several reasons: I did not decide to change my company yet; I thought it is a bad way of showing off; and I underestimated its effectiveness.
Pushed by my passion to get solid information about branding electronic image to get use of it personally, and mainly to transfer this experience to Syrian expatriates through NGOs lectures or workshops, I decided to enroll in ONE Award offered by my university.
I soon learned that 'blog' still has central values! So I created a blog and interconnected it with two other social communication sites: LinkedIn, and Twitter. My choices built upon the different nature of these three sites, which can by good integration express my professional life in several dimensions. In blog I can write almost freely; in LinkedIn I can write a professional profile and connect with other professionals; and through Twitter I can expand my communications in a wide way. Through interconnection of these three deferent sites, automatically and sometimes manually, I can give a fair professional mage with efficient time consuming.
In addition to the above three main “channels" I began using other "supportive" web services like YouTube and SlideShare which can help enriching my main three channels (LinkedIn, Blogger and Twitter) in marketing myself by using multimedia of my achievements and learning, and which should also help in expanding my network.
But the challenge of succeeding in branding my professional image is not limited to good managing of my accounts in LinkedIn, Blogger, and Twitter; the challenge expands to my whole searchable electronic footprint in internet!
Employers search for the whole electronic footprint, not only professional part. Other social parts are important; your daily life outside profession with friends and family can give important indicators for employers to estimate and compare between potential employees, especially for some kind of jobs. Personal values (political, religious, life values and visions…) and characteristics are may be more important to employer internet searching process for a main reason: that it is not acceptable to interrogate about it in job interviews! This is what more social sites like “facebook” can offer.
Some may chooses to keep his life too private covering it away from employers and other curious parties, but I think it is more useful to be fairly open to public and employers by your values and characteristics. I understand that some of my values and characteristics give me some negative effects in my potential employer evaluation, but I am pretty sure that to get a new job with ‘clear enough’ personal values and characteristics is better for my career in middle and long term.
Your employer should know you enough (both what could thought as positive and negative points), so he will not over or under estimate you badly, which could harm your career. In addition, knowing your values and characteristics may help your employer to choose more suitable jobs for you which will make you more productive, creative and loyal.
