Search THE READING ROOM

Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts

Thursday, April 9, 2015

"Make social media work for you (not against you)"

What I have been telling my students for many years now: "Recruiters are looking at your social media posts."

Here, writing in Mint, Infancia Cardozo explains how you can ensure that potential employers like what they see and how to improve your hireability.


 Read this instructive and enlightening article in its entirety here.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

What hope is there for this English teacher's students?

I came across this comment on Facebook today:

xxxxxxxxxx Hi xxxxxxxx..good to see you on fb. This is your english teacher frm xxx.. does it ring a bell....!!!!.looking to catch up with you . Chou

This "english" teacher from a Bangalore school (I have blacked out details that would identify the teacher and the school) seems to be happy using SMS lingo on "fb". She also appears to have no compunctions about peppering her comment with exclamation marks and periods. And I think she meant to sign off with "ciao".

So here's a burning question: What's the point of an education if you remain illiterate?

And here's another one: Who will teach the teachers?

Monday, December 30, 2013

The best argument I have read for staying away from social media

Avid reader and seasoned journalist Aakar Patel, writing in the year-end issue of Mint Lounge, says social media is for those looking to be distracted by an inexhaustible supply of material — and not those for whom reading is a serious affair.

I don't agree with him entirely, but a couple of points he has made are right on the button:

As a writer, I personally find social media off-putting and not useful.
 

Writers must be insulated from feedback, particularly of the immediate kind. One has no option but to be exposed to this on Facebook and on Twitter, and such things always carry the expectation of a response. ... [The comments section] is meant to be a conversation, and I accept that at times it is an intelligent one. But having comments on your work published alongside it is the equivalent of talking from atop a soapbox at Hyde Park.

The hooting and the cheers and the heckling is all on display, and apparently for the benefit of the writer. All of this is fine, and legitimate I suppose, and certainly it adds to the reader’s experience. But why subject yourself as a writer to it? Unless the idea is to bask in your popularity or infamy, there is little point.


And here is the other important (and just as valid) point:

[Comments by Indians] tend to be tangential, personal, often abusive and mostly irrelevant. I must also say that the quality of the comment is poor and that of the writing poorer. This is an anecdotal observation, but you know what I mean. It infects the other strain of social media, which is user-generated reviews. I don’t think it is wise to pick a restaurant here through what people have written about it on the Internet.

Read the column in its entirety here: "Why I’m not on social media".
  • To know more about Aakar Patel, go here.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Don't get burned by your online profile

From an article published in Bloomberg Businessweek two days ago:

Think before you post, especially if you’re looking for a job. Seems like common sense, doesn’t it? Yet despite all the advice and warnings to be cautious with social media, job applicants continue to get burned by their online profiles.

Read the piece in its entirety here: Hey Job Applicants, Time to Stop the Social-Media Sabotage.

Afterwards, learn how to scan and delete your old, embarrassing posts from your social networking site: "Get rid of digital clutter".

And you will also want to read this post that I discovered on the Time magazine website: "Facebook Etiquette: Avoid These 5 Common Mistakes".

MUST-READS:

Monday, May 13, 2013

Yes, career women should "lean in", but they should also learn when to lean back

Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg wants women to stop holding themselves back and to "lean in" to their careers, but another poster girl for success in the media world, Ariana Huffington (of The Huffington Post fame), has written, with respect to her own experience, that women also need to learn when to lean back:

If success continues to be defined as driving yourself into the ground and burning out, it will be disastrous for our families, our companies, and our world.


Huffington is the featured columnist in the "Hard Choices" section of a recent issue of Bloomberg Businessweek. Read her short but heart-felt and illuminating piece here.
  • Photo-illustration courtesy: Bloomberg Businessweek
  • ALSO READ: In today's Mint, "Women must find the strength to soar". Will Sheryl Sandberg's "lean-in" philosophy find takers here in India? Three women entrepreneurs Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Rashmi Bansal, and Meena Ganesh talk to Bhakti Bapat Mathew about what it will take to ensure genuine equal opportunity at work in our country.
  • ADDITIONAL READING: Legendary investment guru Warren Buffett explains why he is gung-ho about women in the workforce. He also expresses concern about too many women continuing to impose limitations on themselves, talking themselves out of achieving their potential. Read his wise and witty piece here.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Why everyone should think before communicating through social media

Ilya Pozin, a contributor to the "Entrepreneurs" section on the Forbes website, has posed two important questions in a recent post:

On sites like Twitter and Facebook, do all old-school means of social etiquette get thrown out the window? Or do most people not even know what classifies as proper social etiquette to begin with?

In turn, he lists 12 questions that he says you must ask yourself before you hit "post" on Facebook:

Should I target a specific audience with this message?

Will anyone really care about this content besides me?

Will I offend anyone with this content? If so, who? Does it matter?

Is this appropriate for a social portal, or would it best be communicated another way?

How many times have I already posted something today? (More than three can be excessive.)

Did I spell check?

Will I be okay with absolutely anyone seeing this?

Is this post too vague? Will everyone understand what I’m saying?

Am I using this as an emotional dumping ground? If so, why? Is a different outlet better for these purposes?

Am I using too many abbreviations in this post and starting to sound like a teenager?

Is this reactive communication or is it well thought-out?

Is this really something I want to share, or is it just me venting?

Read Ilya Pozin's post in its entirety here: "Social Media Etiquette: 12-Step Checklist".
  • Thank you, Rigved Sarkar (Class of 2010), for the alert.
ADDITIONAL READING:

"Facebook: Boon or bane?"

"Are you revealing more than you should on Facebook?"

"How you interact with people on any platform on the Web and what you say about issues is an indication of the kind of person you are"


Friday, November 2, 2012

Mind your e-language: How you interact with people on any platform on the Web and what you say about issues is an indication of the kind of person you are

Sonal Agrawal, managing partner of an executive search firm, has made a strong case in Mint for minding your e-language. Writing in her "Career Coach" column, she says this is "not about censoring every online move but about exercising restraint".

Agrawal begins her column with the example of a candidate who messed up his chances of a job with a private equity client of her company's because he had not been "particularly circumspect about the language or tone he used".

Agrawal continues:

After some debate, the firm decided that the candidate’s online personal (but not private) interactions displayed an almost schizophrenic lack of maturity and judgment. While I certainly wouldn’t classify him as a “hater”, he certainly bordered on being an Internet troll. They didn’t hire him. Amazingly enough (or perhaps not), the candidate went on a rant about free speech and privacy — online, on a public profile.

Every year I have been telling my students to watch what they say on Facebook and other public platforms ("Yes, recruiters are using Facebook and Twitter to screen candidates") so I was glad to see Agrawal's piece. What she has to say on this subject should be taken seriously because a. she knows what she is talking about, and b. she knows what she is talking about because she is an expert in the recruitment business.

What she has to say here is particulary pertinent today:

With the costs and risks of making a bad hire increasing exponentially, employers are increasingly looking at researching potential candidates well beyond their professional profiles and traditional reference checks. Apart from seeking to reinforce positive traits — Are you well networked? Do you communicate well? Are you considered an expert in your field? — they are also consciously looking for tell-tale signs of undesirable traits that could disqualify you for the job. Do you have anger-management issues? How do you react to stress? Are you racist? Are you a team player? Apart from the traditional methods of interviewing, referencing and testing, increasingly they are going online to see what you are saying about yourself, not just to professional links, but also to your friends, followers and circles. 

Read her column in its entirety here: "Mind your e-language".
  • UPDATE (June 29, 2013): From an article published in Bloomberg Businessweek two days ago: "Think before you post, especially if you’re looking for a job. Seems like common sense, doesn’t it? Yet despite all the advice and warnings to be cautious with social media, job applicants continue to get burned by their online profiles." Read the piece in its entirety here: Hey Job Applicants, Time to Stop the Social-Media Sabotage. 

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Are you revealing more than you should on Facebook?

You really, really shouldn't. Not unless you want to scupper your chances of getting a good job. Not unless you want to risk being fired from that good job.

A "revealing" article on the U.S. News & World Report website by Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter confirms what I believe and what I have been telling my students for years now: Recruiters and HR executives are trawling the Web, especially Facebook, to get the inside scoop on both job candidates and employees. There are at least two methods they employ, writes Barrett-Poindexter. They research you through a friend of a friend. And they use deep Web searches.

So is there anything you can do to protect yourself? The answer is yes. Here are Barrett-Poindexter's tips:

1. Don't trust privacy settings.
2. Avoid negativity.
3. Internet conversations are (somewhat) indelible.
4. Be careful what you share.
5. It's OK to unfriend.

The article elaborates on each of these tips. Study them here: "5 Tricks to Keep Facebook From Hurting Your Job Search".
  • Thank you, Pallabi Mitra (Class of 2012), for the alert.
  • Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, a Glassdoor career and workplace expert, offers helpful advice on a host of work-related topics. Check out her columns here.
  • UPDATE (June 29, 2013): From an article published in Bloomberg Businessweek two days ago: "Think before you post, especially if you’re looking for a job. Seems like common sense, doesn’t it? Yet despite all the advice and warnings to be cautious with social media, job applicants continue to get burned by their online profiles." Read the piece in its entirety here: Hey Job Applicants, Time to Stop the Social-Media Sabotage.  

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Your Facebook profile may be a fairly accurate reflection of how good you will be at your job

I have always known that companies have been checking out the Facebook profiles of prospective employees. Now here is confirmation of that fact in the form of a study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology last month.

Writing about the study on the Forbes magazine website, Kashmir Hill says that employers already know it’s a good idea to check job candidates’ Facebook pages "to make sure there aren’t any horrible red flags there".

She continues:

The reddest flags for most employers seem to be drugs, drinking, badmouthing former employers, and lying about one’s qualifications.

But there’s another good reason for checking out a candidate’s Facebook page before inviting them in for an interview: it may be a fairly accurate reflection of how good they’ll be at the job.

The Facebook page is the first interview, Hill writes, because if you don’t like a person there, you probably won’t like working with them.

Read the feature in its entirety here: "Facebook Can Tell You If A Person Is Worth Hiring".

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

How to get people to read — and appreciate — your Facebook posts

  • Make every word count.
  • Keep it simple.
  • Provide context.
  • Lead with the good stuff.
  • Write killer headlines.
  • Graphics expand the story.
  • People make things interesting.
  • It’s OK to use first-person.
  • Consider your audience.
  • Be polite.
These guidelines come from an enlightening slide presentation titled Social Media 101: Tactics, tips for beginners by Robin J. Phillips.

I would add one more tip:
  • Write captions for the photographs you post on Facebook and Twitter.
Many young people I know disagree on this point. "Our pictures don't need captions," they insist. "They speak for themselves." How? I am unable to understand why anyone would go through an album-load of, say, holiday photographs, when there's no incentive to pause and think about each photograph.

The job of a caption is to tell viewers what they are looking at and why. The caption also reveals details that are not immediately apparent to viewers. And the caption helps to tell a story.

Do I practise what I preach? Take a look at my Darjeeling album there are 83 photographs, each with a caption that, I think, helps to tell a story, sometimes with a touch of humour. Here's an example, a picture taken by my wife, Chandrika:

These monks appear to be in a hurry to get to the Ghoom Monastery. Note the one doing the herky-jerky on the railway track as he uses his mobile phone to explain to the abbot why he is late for Buddhism class.

Here's a picture from my Mobile Uploads album on Facebook:

YERCAUD, April 2010 At sunset this little spider would wake up and begin merrily spinning its web. By the time the sun had disappeared it would be ready for dinner. Bon appetit, Spidey!

And here are a couple of great examples from a feature about "superclimbers" in National Geographic magazine (both photographs are by Jimmy Chin):

Barely holding on with a hand chalked for a better grip, Cedar Wright ignores burning muscles to pull himself across the roof of Gravity Ceiling, a route on Higher Cathedral Rock. "I'm giving it 199 percent," he says. "But I still thought I was calm and cool."

You need training to boost finger strength and a mountain of determination to grip the teeny holds along this mostly blank expanse of El Cap. Even though Kevin Jorgeson has been climbing parts of the route for three years, he was amazed by this photograph: "There's so little of me touching the wall."

Sure, these pictures are a treat in themselves, but just think how much more context the captions provide, helping viewers to understand the story behind each picture and, at the same time, making them pause longer on each picture.

Don't you want your Facebook friends to react in similar fashion to your pictures?

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Yes, recruiters are using Facebook and Twitter to screen candidates

I have been telling my students for years now to be careful about what they post on Facebook and Twitter.

When you apply for a job, I tell them, you may be judged on the basis of your virtual life. So, mind your language.

Think of interesting and intelligent status messages and tweets.

And when you post pictures, think about how these pictures may influence a potential employer. Sure, you may argue that your privacy settings will protect you, but what's to stop a "friend" from copying and forwarding content from your page?

Here's evidence, albeit from a foreign source, that recruiters use social networks to screen candidates.


Want more information? Want to study the infographics closely? Go to Mashable.

And believe me when I tell you that recruiters are dong this in India, too. Why wouldn't they? They get to see the "real" you on Facebook and Twitter, don't they?
  • Thank you, Apar Dham (Class of 2011) for the tip-off.
"The interviewer asked me for my Twitter ID and immediately scanned all my tweets" 
  • From an earlier post Satish Perumal (Class of 2011) writes: We think of Twitter and Facebook as networking tools which we use to keep in touch with friends and relatives. I, too, thought these networking sites were good only for having a... er, good time, an escape tunnel from the real world to the virtual one.

    But I did a rethink recently after a job interview with a social marketing company, Uncut Donut. The interviewer asked me for my Twitter ID and immediately scanned all my tweets, looked at my profile, and tried to get a fix on what kind of topics interest me. I was taken aback a bit by this turn of events and did not know how to react.

    Moral of the story: These networking sites might be fun, but these days they are a launch pad for the careers of many ambitious youngsters. And HR departments use them as recruitment tools too. So go ahead and get cracking with your networking! 
Yes, your Facebook profile and holiday pictures
can convey the wrong impression to recruiters


UPDATE (November 30, 2011): DNA's "After Hrs." section today features a story by Sneha Mahadevan on the monitoring of social networking sites by companies when hiring candidates. There are two examples in the story that illustrate the risks of posting "inappropriate" material on these sites:

Diya Malhotra, 25-year-old marketing professional with an MBA, was being considered for a job at a leading multinational company. After clearing the first round of interviews she was asked to come for the final round of personal interviews, scheduled a week later. When she did come, she was shocked to hear the kind of questions the professionals conducting the interview asked her. "I went in expecting to be asked about my work, but instead they asked me how often I'd go on vacations and how often I party. They even said I wasn't allowed to have an office romance. Initially, it came as a shock to me, but I realised later on that they would have snooped around on my profile on Facebook and seen my holiday pictures. Since then I have changed my privacy settings on social networking sites," she says.

While some have been rejected after being considered potentially reliable candidates, some have fallen into trouble after posting remarks about a co-worker in jest. Surekha Mahadik went through a situation that taught her to never discuss work on a social networking site. "A colleague and I were just routinely catching up on Facebook and happened to say something about another colleague in our team in good jest. She read it, all hell broke loose and the next thing we knew, we were summoned by the HR managers for a lecture on office etiquette," she recalls.

Also read: Facebook: Boon or bane?
  • UPDATE (June 29, 2013): From an article published in Bloomberg Businessweek two days ago: "Think before you post, especially if you’re looking for a job. Seems like common sense, doesn’t it? Yet despite all the advice and warnings to be cautious with social media, job applicants continue to get burned by their online profiles." Read the piece in its entirety here: Hey Job Applicants, Time to Stop the Social-Media Sabotage. 

Friday, August 26, 2011

A Facebook conversation that illustrates the perils of copying and pasting status messages, or sharing links, without studying closely those messages or links-2

Commitscion Ankana Sinha (Class of 2009), who works as a brand manager with ProNature Organic Foods in Bangalore, graciously consented to let me reproduce this discussion we had on Facebook earlier today:


Worth a watch. Not sure how much of it is authentic though...

www.youtube.com
See the real story of Anna Hazare , checkout what his ex-colleagues have to say about him. You will be shocked to hear the real truth hidden from all of us.
19 hours ago ·  ·  · 


    • Ramesh Prabhu If it's not authentic, why is it being passed on?
      15 hours ago ·  ·  1 person

    • Ankana Sinha Maybe because we just like controversies...
      2 hours ago · 

    • Ramesh Prabhu Ankana: Please read this post and, afterwards, let me know what you think. Thank you. http://goo.gl/3IUkd

      engageentertainenlighten.blogspot.com
      This blog is for students of Commits, a media college in Bangalore, where I teac...See More

      50 minutes ago ·  · 

    • Ankana Sinha I have read this one. I will need a very long conversation with you on this. I shared this link because it was interesting, not because I believe it or subscribe to it.
      45 minutes ago · 

    • Ankana Sinha And I did try making it clear in the status message with the link.
      44 minutes ago · 

    • Ramesh Prabhu ‎1. If you don't believe in what you're "sharing", or if you don't subscribe to it, please make that clear in your status update. Your status update said, "Worth a watch".

      2. There will be lots of stuff on the net that could be considered "interesting", but before "sharing" any of it, please think twice. You may be giving unnecessary, and wrong, publicity to something that has no merit, or, worse, is blatantly untrue.

      41 minutes ago · 

    • Ankana Sinha It is worth a watch because those people are saying something interesting...I also said in my status that I doubt its credibility. Not once have I said it is true. Not once have i urged the viewers to "spread the message". I trust the viewers to use their discretion. Do you believe everything that is "thrown" at you?
      33 minutes ago · 

    • Ramesh Prabhu How do you know who these "people" are? What is their background? What agenda are they promoting? Who has made this video? With what purpose?

      My concern is that your friends, who have faith in your judgment, will believe what they see in this video. And that is not right if this video is a propaganda film.

      I have what I think is a healthy scepticism -- partly because of my nature, partly because of my training as a journalist -- so, no, I don't believe everything that is thrown at me. In fact, I don't even read such emails or watch such clips because I am deeply suspicious of their intent.

      28 minutes ago · 

    • Ramesh Prabhu And you did not say you doubt this video's credibility. You said, "Not sure how much of it is authentic though...". That gives the impression that you believe some of it is authentic. How would you know that?
      24 minutes ago · 

    • Ankana Sinha I don't think it means I believe it is part authentic. I am questioning its authenticity...it could mean that all of it is not authentic.
      22 minutes ago · 

    • Ramesh Prabhu My request: Please don't pass on anything that is not authentic. Please don't fall for these propaganda scams.
      21 minutes ago · 

    • Ankana Sinha ‎:) okay, granted.
      20 minutes ago ·