"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.

• ALSO READ: "Facebook: Boon or bane?"

How do you know the company you are going to be working for is right for you?

By conducting an informational interview, that's how.

And what is an informational interview? Here's Mark Nichol, editor of the Daily Writing Tips blog, explaining the term:

It’s a meeting with someone in a position, department, company, or profession that intrigues you. You’re not certain whether you are suited for or interested in that career, so you ask someone who knows what working in such an environment involves. (Equally important is what an informational interview is not: It is not a stratagem for finagling an opportunity to ask for a job under the guise of merely obtaining information.)

This seems like something we would do as a matter of course. But do we do it systematically? Do we do it in the manner Nichol prescribes? Ah! There's the rub.

From how to set up an informational interview and what to do if the subject declines to answer the questions you must ask — Nichol covers all the bases.

Coming to the questions, Nichol makes it clear you must find out what you can through your own research first. Then he provides a dozen questions which, he stresses, you must not just recite: "The interview should be more of a conversation." Sound advice, that.

Here are some of the questions on Nichol's list:

• How do you spend your workday, and what are the weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles, if any, of your workload?
   
• What is the balance of routine and novelty in your job? Does your work largely follow a set pattern, and does that appeal to you, or is it mostly unpredictable, and do you like that?
   
• What type of skills and knowledge did you bring to your job, and what have you acquired? What skills or knowledge do you apply most often?
   
• (Briefly outline your educational/work history.) How would one start out in this profession, and what other coursework or job experience would you recommend or you would consider indispensable?

And, in conclusion, Nichol offers two important tips:

The most important thing to say, of course, is “Thank you — I appreciate that you took the time and effort to help me in my research” — and to do so again in writing (in a mailed note or postcard, not an email message).

Also, honour your pledge not to exploit the person’s offer to meet with you as a pretence for hinting about employment. 

Again, very sound advice. If you are about to begin your job search for the first time, or even if you have a few years' experience and are looking for new options, you will want to read what Mark Nichol has to say about informational interviews: "What is an informational interview?"

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.

• Also read: "Yes, recruiters are using Facebook and Twitter to screen candidates".

• 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.  

About to begin your first job? Or first internship? Here are 20 tips:

On June 1 last year Atul Chitnis, one of India's best-known technologists, posted a list of 20 tips on Twitter for people starting their first job that day. He wrote on his blog some months later that the list was partly or fully re-posted all across the web, but "people keep asking me for a link to the tips. So I guess I should post them here on my own blog as well".

Of the 20 tips, here are my favourites:

• This is not school/college. You won’t lose marks because you don’t know something. You WILL if you don’t say so!
   
• Don’t be afraid of stating an opinion — be afraid of NOT stating one. You could be wrong, but won’t know if you don’t pipe up!
   
• Employers aren’t really looking for a bunch of yes-(wo)men. But they aren’t looking for a bunch of revolutionaries, either.
   
• Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially if you are young. You will thank me for this advice.
   
• Dare to look beyond your given assignment. “Good enough” never is. 

And I wholeheartedly endorse what Chitnis says at the end:

• While you may ignore all my tips for your first job — don’t ever skip breakfast.

I have lost count of the number of times I have told my students that they should NEVER give breakfast a miss.

If you're about to begin your first job — or your first internship even — you should read all 20 of Chitnis's tips and then attempt to put them into practice.

• Thanks to Commitscion Jalaja Ramanunni (Class of 2009) for the link. 

• UPDATE (June 20, 2013): Here's how to answer that near-universal job interview question: WHY SHOULD WE HIRE YOU?

How do you stand out from competition?

Will you send a shoe to your prospective employer with the message, "I want to get my foot in the door"?

Read this helpful little feature by Peralte C. Paul in Mint (reproduced from the New York Times) to learn what candidates are doing in the US to impress their potential bosses: "Do you stand out in a job market?"