One of the key ideas to WIN in the congested, competitive, crazy modern workplace is creating an AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE – this allows others to create memories (for themselves) about YOU.

(This is what personal branding is about, BTW).

When my team hires, we no longer rely on the resumes / CVs. As Aline Lerner describes in her data-driven approach to resume reviewing…

“at the end of the day, the resume is a low-signal document.

Instead, we search for an online presence, because there we find real authenticity (as well as creative talent). Here is an extract from a Fast Co. article on the same topic…

See, social media stalking does work!!

“…a person’s Facebook profile reveals more about the kind of employee they’ll be than an IQ test.

“Social media is a hiring manager’s friend. Before bringing in a potential candidate for an interview, he suggests taking advantage of the wealth of information found on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts: “I like to look through picture albums to see what a person is posting,” he says. “You learn a lot about someone by looking at what they believe worthy of sharing.”

“Stevens also likes to look for articles they mention, vacations they take, and movies they watch because it gives insight on what they find interesting. And he looks for conversations with the person’s spouse, children, and friends because it gives clues to their integrity.”

A couple of take-away points:

1. Having a social media footprint is a GOOD IDEA!

Too many people take great pride in NOT embracing these new social / tech paradigms. This may back fire at some point in people’s careers, because employers will see an absence of social as a head scratching mystery.

In our recent hiring, we only interviewed people with a online social presence – mainly a personal website of sorts – that allowed us to infer some (positive!) things about them.

2. This footprint should be CURATED.

If you like to share photos of being drunk / stupid, sure!, but do so in a private social space. Your public face will AMPLIFY the things you stand for.

3. This works not just for hiring. Having a strong network of friends, collaborators, supporters, followers, connectors etc. is the NUMBER ONE way to scale, speed up, and lead in emergent, unpredictable economic times.

On this point, I am planning to run a 10-week workshop this year at work on network building and online skills amplification, using a process developed by John Stepper, called Working Out Loud Circles. There is work to be done!

←This Much We Know.→