Study: More companies succeed in recruiting via social networks

Social Media is becoming the new talent aquisition tool for companies. A recent study by Jobvite states that almost 90% of companies are planning to use social networks to find job candidates. This is an increase of 7% to last year. Two thirds of employers said they had successfully filled a job position via social networking.

The study that polled 800 human resource staffers and headhunters in the U.S also illustrates the importance of personal branding which I proclaim for years now – also with the vision of a personal scoring index. Job seekers should understand the importance of having an active profile on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. However, this is essential and career benefitial, the study also warns that what you say and do on those sites has an impact on your career.

Running the survey in their fifth year, Jobvite is seeing a steady increase by employers in the use of social media.

“Employee referrals are the highest quality hires. (…) They last the longest, have the best match with expectations, and churn the least.” Dan Finnigan, CEO, Jobvite

According to Jobvite’s own client data, 70% of companies examine candidates’ social media profiles after getting a referral. Which means you never know who is checking your latest party pictures and how much you ruin your reputation by updating embarrassing information

“Don’t post any picture, say any words or take any actions that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see,” advises Finnigan.

Some interesting finding shows that Facebook is not the main place to look for job candidates. However, LinkedIn went up from 78.3% to 86.6% (inclusive of all possible usage like search, job postings, etc.).

Having said that, Jobvite also asked their own customers how many actually hired staff using social referrals from various social networking sites. 43% of referrals that resulted in hires came from Facebook versus 41% from LinkedIn and 16% from Twitter.

Spot On!
For the Social Society in which we are living social engagement become an asset bonus but also a challenge for job seekers. Today, it is still difficult to understand for many recruiters why you have a personal brand. In the future, this will change and show your affinity to a topic, to brands and to modern business tactics. People might be addressed or recruited by younger hiring managers who are more tolerant of social media failures or side steps but the more senior a position gets, the pickier recruitment managers are getting.

How do you see the future of personal branding and how recruiters are checking your capabilities via social networks?

The Social Society – Social Engagement & Jobs

Some days ago, I have started the series The Social Society which is meant to be a thought-provoking piece of information to get us all rethink what the challenges, opportunities and risks are that arise from the social web. For all those who engage in the Social Web as you will see in this post, it could be a job creator and a job killer. Just the way you want to see it if you are checking the latest findings from studies and posts on social engagement and what it can do to you and your job. In the end as we all know today… Social engagement costs time!

Let’s start with the good message first: An Accenture study assumes the internet will account for 21% of gross domestic product (GDP) growth in five years. Thus, it will have a remarkable impact on employment levels. It “created jobs on a large scale,” the study claims. Accenture predicts the internet creates 2.6 new jobs for every one lost. The study cites the example of France where 500.000 jobs of middle men got replaced by technology as people thought but in reality 1.2 Mio. jobs were created through the internet. So, the internet is a job creator. So far, so good from a general point of view. We get jobs, thanks to the internet…

Now what happens when Social Society is doing their jobs?

One of the main questions that business decision makers want to know is how productive are we based on technology, the web and social activities? You will find more studies stating negative rather than positive impact on productivity when it comes to social engagement.

Although studies should be asking whether productivity increases or decreases with the use of technology, and especially the social web, most of those studies just release negative results. Or is it just the way media reads it? If you ever come across a trustworthy study that suggest the benefits of internet activity or social engagement, I would be very happy to share these findings…

Maybe the following study is a positive example? According to the latest uSamp US study, the web is a time waster. What is positive about 45% of employees surveyed stating they work 15 minutes or less without getting interrupted. Isn’t this a scary thing? Some managers might say: Sure, social media and the other forms of social engagement will be the reason for this. I can already hear them…

The study reveals however, that 60% of workplace distractions are tied to email, social networks, text messages or just jumping between windows of applications, so not only social engagement. 53% of workers “waste” at least one hour per day on technology interruptions by social engagement and collaborative tools which equates to approx. $10,000 in annual productivity loss per person (based on an average salary of $30 per hour). Funnily enough, it is not social media that causes main problem for productivity. 23% of distractions are coming from email. So, productivity will get lost with the use of technology but social engagement is a much smaller portion. It’s the way we read studies that makes them sound appropriate for our purposes, right?

So, can the Social Society use the social web during our working hours?

Well, this is where managers and the evanglists of web technology are fighting “verbal battles” these days. Porsche denies acces to Facebook for employees, Italian government did so to their employees, too. People get fired for being socially engaged on Twitter. Although I have to admit that some of these 13 Twitter cases were not really clever and thoughtful conversations. But go to Twitter and Facebook and just monitor what people are saying. These examples happens on a daily basis. One gets caught by proclaiming or talking about their employer, their company or some irrelevant topic. Some don’t. Or we don’t hear about it. Some people are clever and obey some clever rules about how to avoid personal branding mistakes. We are all learning social engagement these days…

So is there a solution how much social engagement is feasible for employees in the future? Or should I say for the employer…?

Spot On!
In some way companies always appreciated (and expected) social engagement and personal branding. If people were writing books, they have been seen as specialist and experts in their field. If they spoke at events, they were even more accepted and respected as business partners. If they expressed their thought-provoking opinion publicly, people rated their transpaency, their openness and their intellect. People have done this next to their jobs for ages. Companies have accepted it as it paid back to business and brands. Did this increase productivity? Who knows… Today, people write blogs, fuel discussions via Twitter and Facebook, and engage on social communities. The lack of understanding for this social engagement. How to show guidance and leadership capabilities of executives and managers in terms of embracing the value of social engagement. Tracking user patterns or blocking access to modern social media tools won’t decrease the level of social engagement. If people are busy, they will reduce their social engagement. If managers know how to use social engagement for productivity and if employees get more freedom for productive conversations (i.e. fixed % of spare time for social engagement) and social training, I can imagine we will see more positive reports and studies on social engagements in the future.

Again, this is just a thought-proking post and I am very much interested in your views… Come on get engaged! It will help all of us get a better understanding of how to improve our future workplace.

Personal Scoring Index = The future of digital identity?

Three years ago, I was sitting together with a colleague in a coffee shop. It was snowing. We were watching the snowflakes falling down. We were talking some philosophy on how the future of individuality will look like ten years ahead, refering to the snow flakes and how their “individual dna” changes the world around us into a new one we have never seen before.

Sure, we were not sure what the future will bring. However, that day we were realizing some critical development that people define themselves through blog posts (like our fathers did with books), reviews (Amazon and the likes), ratings (in communities and networks, not only social ones…), and comments on articles and posts on websites all over the world. We saw that CV’s might loose their relevance for job search as there was an option to recommend a person’s capabillities and intelligence just by checking their digital engagement, output – their digital DNA. The feeling that humanity and ethic values will have a massive effect on how people might be defined from the outside world was obvious to us. Just like “perfect” snow flakes have somehow perfect formats than others. They have scored and thus indexed themselves as superior to the others.

Today, I know, see and read that scoring and indexing becomes a crucial part of our lives, our individuality, and our identity. Although it might just affect those who are really active social web users… for now. Still, the trend is alive. Platforms are tracking our digital footprints, our shopping behaviour like Blippy, our deepest desires, and try to predict our future purchase decision. The question is not whether we will continue to score value to our index, and/or if others will follow. It is more like… Will social pofiles, writing status updates, and sharing brain value enhance our individuality, and thus how will this influence our credibility? And who or which organization or association will be judging upon it? Or even more important, who will secure the validity of such an index process?

Just imagine we had some kind of trusted source or association that knows our scoring index on the personal likelihood of sharing some piece of information, the potential of reach and relevance? Ideas, news, rumors, and visions around brands, products and services would be addressed to that person via a newly-created trust agency. Agencies and brands would be much more interested in the long-tail ad market, in bloggers or in social medians in general. Artifical user reach would be shifting to real personal relevance. Brand intensity could be enlarged by user credibility. If the users voluntarily share their believe in brands, products and companies. But is this realistic? It must be, or how could Facebook pages have become so important for some of us? We love to score, define and index ourselves via the social web. And personal search engines like 123people or yasni are just two examples of possible scoring index platforms that undermine our aasumptions.

Obviously the social web will be changing into a pervasive web which people need to be aware of (and understand). Semantic impact needs to evolve, become a trustworty basis for credible metric which people could rely upon. And how does the amout of time invested in web engagement pay into the credit of our professional individuality? Is less more, or more less? How will Google change it’s algorithm and thereby the impact on our personal scoring index? Should we invest in Facebook, Diaspora or on Path (which by its definition may become the real base for our personal brandvangelism). And just think about the possibilities if you can match the personal index in a room via mobile and augmented reality tools? There will be no way around a personal web manager controling, checking and optimizing your personal branding in the future. Don’t you think?

“Like Larry Page and Sergey Brin changed the way websites are measured with their Pagerank, reputation scores will change the way people will be treated in the future. Reputation scores will change the classical customer relationship management as it was done bei companies in the past and will enable them to identify opinion leaders within their customers and attract them with special offers and treatment in order to use them as evangelists for their products. Knowing who the most valuable peers are provides marketing experts a complete new angle of doing campaigns – offline and online,” says Marcel Hollerbach, CEO of SiRANK (…a company that is working on a business model on indexing people’s reputation).

I am just waiting that there will be a platform that aggregates all the data that we leave as score data on the web, and that this platform then indexes us. Or is that a threat? Already becoming reality when we look at Klout, the first personal scoring index? Or is it just an assessment of social media influence?

Today, the snow flakes keep falling down…. Many of us have built an intense relationship on the basis of sharing and matching our most inner brain credentials. We work on our personal scoring index and hope whenever we need to differentiate ourselves from others, our social graph can enrich our digital identity.

Do you still wonder if and in which way some format of Personal Scoring Index (PSI) could become alive…?

Das Social Web – eine dreiteilige Webinar-Reihe

In dieser dreiteiligen Webinarreihe wird der Fokus auf der Beziehung zwischen dem Web als Kommunikationskanal der Zukunft und Social Media als modernem Tool für Kundenbeziehungs-Management liegen.

Das Social Web wird in den nächsten Jahren zahlreiche Veränderungen innerhalb der Unternehmen als auch im Umgang mit Kunden hervorrufen. Um den verschiedenen Abteilungsleiter innerhalb eines Unternehmens einen Eindruck zu vermitteln, inwieweit ihr Bereich davon betroffen ist, wurde die Webinar-Reihe in drei Bereiche aufgeteilt: Sales & Marketing, Human Resources/Personalwesen und Unternehmensführung.

Die Webinar-Reihe wird unter dem Motto stehen…
“Das Unternehmen haben früher Executives geleitet. Morgen wird es der Kunde sein…”

14. Mai 2010
Verkaufsförderung mit modernen Sales- und Marketingstrategien

11. Juni 2010
Employer 3.0 – Online Reputation, Personal Branding und Produktivität

18. Juni 2010
Unternehmensführung – Vergessen Sie die große Sorge um den Kontrollverlust!

Die Vorträge dauern eine Stunde. Teilnehmer haben danach noch 30 Minuten Zeit, Fragen zu stellen. Alle drei Webinare beginnen um 11 Uhr.

Es steht eine begrenzte Anzahl an Plätzen zur Verfügung. Anmelden können Sie sich derzeit noch hier.

News Update – Best of the Day

We have asked ourselves this question when talking about the future working place and personal branding on the Lotus JamCamp: How effective are corporate social media policies? This study by security solutions provider nCircle shows again that 39% of the companies still ban social media usage at work. Reason: Security risks! While F-Secure finds that more than 54% use Facebook at work…

It is about time to find some proof and more case studies illustrating the effectiveness of social networking at work. Especially, when teens expect social networking access at work…

If you think about the alignment of social media and your brand, there should be more to consider: 25 things for example, thinks The Financial Brand.

“Bread and Cicuses” to the people. McDonalds knows how to get the customers in their shops. Connecting, offline, online and mobile with one campaign…

Lotus JamCamp 2010 – Gedanken zu(m) BarCamp(s)…

Das Lotus JamCamp war für mich ein sehr inspirierender Eintages-Gedankenaustausch, auch wenn die Veranstaltung zwei Tage ging. Teilweise erreichte mich die professionell organisierte Veranstaltung (IBM Standard eben…) mit positiven, teilweise mit kritischen Einblicken in ein modernes Enterprise 2.0 Offline-Brainstorming.

Der Input der Beteiligten war allemal wertvoll und damit mal mein dank an die Organisatoren.

Vor allem der Vortrag ‘Strategie am Limit – Studienergebnisse zum Kulturraum Internet’ von Frank Schomburg, verdeutlichte eindringlich den Kulturwandel, der zwar in die Gesellschaft eindringt, aber für Unternehmen und ihre Entscheider eine große Herausforderung für die kommenden Jahre darstellt. Die Wertepräferenz der Digital Residents nach mehr Eigenverantwortung und veränderten Unternehmens-Spielregeln versus der die traditionelle Norm wahrenden Unternehmensführer der Digital Visitors steht noch an einem Scheideweg. Die ideologische Zusammenführung wird wohl noch ein paar Jahre dauern dürfte. Was über Jahrzehnte als bewährt galt, lässt sich nunmal nicht in einem Jahrzehnt reformieren.

Eine beruhigende Erkenntnis war, daß die Unterschiede in der Wertediskussion zwischen Digital Natives und Digital Residents (zumindest bei ‘heavy usern’ – Basis der Studienbefragten) keine Altersproblematik in sich birgt. Zeigt es doch, daß Offenheit ein Umdenken ermöglicht. Der Beteiligungs Boom im Social Web geht dennoch erst langsam richtig los und mit ihm verschiebt sich die Macht auf die Anbieterseite. Unternehmen sollten vor der glimmenden Lunte der Netzwerkresonanz Vorsorge treffen, so der Rat vom Schomburg. Er resumierte, daß der Erfolgsfaktor der Unternehmen in der Fahigkeit liege, zwischen Netzwerk und Hierarchie zu wechseln (schön illustriert am Beispiel des Chaos-Pendels).

Eine wichtige Bemerkung von Dr. Peter Schütt, Leiter Knowledge Management IBM Software Group EMEA, aus seinem Vortrag “Führen im Enterprise 2.0″ sei hierbei nicht unerwähnt. Beim Thema Crowdscourcing und Ergebnisfindung weist er auf eine feinen Unterscheidung zu James Surowiecki hin, der sich mit meiner Erkenntnis deckt. Letztendlich entscheide nicht der Mittelwert der Masse, sondern es gilt die “Leuchttürme in den Crowds zu identifizieren, um die Weisheit der Masse zu erkennen”.

Barcamp als Eventmodus
Allerdings sind für mich, offen gesagt, Barcamps bzw. Open Space Offline Sharings mit Businessfokus immernoch nicht unbedingt in meinen persönlichen Arbeitsalltag übergegangen. Das hat verschiedene Gründe (Feedback an IBM)…

Zeit ist eines unserer wertvollsten Güter für die und in der Zukunft. Als Als Familienvater hat man auch im Zeitalter des Social Web seine Verpflichtungen und seine Wertevorstellung von Zeit für die Familie – früher sagte man mal Wochenende. Wenn BarCamps am Wochenende stattfinden, brigt das Konfliktpotential für Communities wie den heimischen Familienrat oder auch den auf dem Camp zahlreich angesprochene Betriebsrat.

Wenn es ein Business-Event ist und trotzdem BarCamp Charakter hat, kann es ruhig unter der Woche stattfinden. Ob es dann nun als BarCamp tituliert wird, oder nicht, ist zweitrangig für die obigen Communities. Der Austausch des Input bringt den Erfolg der Veranstaltung. Bekommt die Veranstaltung zusätzlich noch einen inhaltlich und organisatorisch-traditionellen Eventtag, so birgt es allerdings die Gefahr, daß Teilnehmer dem offiziellen Tag zuviel Aufmerksamkeit widmen könnten.

Die Location Ehningen als Standpunkt halte ich auch weiterhin für sehr sinnvoll. Ehningen ist die Basis des Unternehmens IBM (in Deutschland) und ein klares Bekenntnis zum gelebten Kulturwandel. Große Unternehmen wie IBM müssen den Geist und die Inspiration der modernen Event-Kommunikationsformate anderen Großunternehmen vorleben. Eine Auslagerung würde den Anschein erwecken, daß das Format nicht von der Unternehmsführung anerkannt wird.

Entscheidend für die positive Infizierung weiterer Unternehmen “Pro Social-Web” ist es sicherlich, mehr Business-Entscheider als Listener für eine solche Veranstaltung zu gewinnen. Da das Format den Eindruck eines traditionellen Club-Charakters (“Aktionismus ist gefragt”) erweckt, kann das gerade diese Personen davon abhalten, sich die Zeit zu nehmen. Und, wer nicht firm ist, will sich nicht mit einem Beitrag die Blöse geben… schon gar nicht als Top-Entscheider.

Spot On!
Mein Beitrag “Karriere der Zukunft – Zwischen Personal Branding und Produktivität” wurde eingehend diskutiert. Die anschließende Diskussion drehte sich um den Gedanken des unbezahlten Zweitjobs, den zeitlichen Aufwand, Monetarisierung und die Vision des Personal Web Managers als gangbares Hilfsmodel zum täglichen Aufwand, den das Social Web im Business fordert. Mein vorangegangener Gedankenaustausch mit Dr. Peter Schütt beim Mittagessen und der Besuch seines Vortrages zeigte mir zahlreiche gemeinsame Strategie-Denkansätze. Vor allem die Erkenntnis der Zerstreuung der Mitarbeiteraufmerksamkeit durch Soziale Medien und die damit notwenidge Refokussierung von Resourcen durch das Management deckte sich: “Führen bedeutet heute immer mehr, die Aufmerksamkeit der Mitarbeiter zu lenken”.

PS: Hätte man auch enden können… ‘im Sinne des Unternehmensauftrages zu inspirieren’?

Best feature of social networks? The Pick-a-boo effect…

Don’t we love to play this game with kids because we know how happy it makes them… Pick-a-boo. But as adults using social networks: What is it that makes us happy? Some weeks ago, I asked some friends of mine who in turn asked friends of theirs as well as their colleagues: What is the main benefitial feature of social networks? The most frequent answer that came up was the ‘Who has been on your profile lately’ feature which goes along the lines of ‘The Pick-a-boo’ effect.

Now, what does that mean ‘The Pick-a-boo’ effect’? Well, people register in social networks in order to get in contact or connected with peers, (old) friends or humans that are (or might be) interested in them or/and their work. The tricky point is that there are people in the world of social networks we don’t want to contact any longer, in the future or in general. Nevertheless, we still love to take a peek as we wonder if they are still interested in us, what they are up to and what impact is driving their lives. It’s kind of human vanity and curiosity thing. We want to compare ourselves with them, want to check out how ‘sexy’ our online (and offline) reputation is – not only in terms of business life. We want to play Pick-a-boo. We are there and everybody in social networks knows that, but we are not visible all the time. And, we would love not to be visible for everybody when we are looking at people’s profiles who appear not to be relevant for our life. But we’ll pop-up from time to time to stay ‘up to date’.

So, we make us accessible and available in social networks for those who are also users of these networks. As we don’t know the size of the target group of people who is interested in us, we want to find out about it. By this we are making the ‘ego-community’ transparent for ourselves. And most of us ‘social medians’ are eager and would love to know that, wouldn’t we? Some networks have acknowledged this desire of being famous and our nasty habit of being vain. And they satisfy our need and desire for that with great application features supporting this pick a boo effect: status updates, birthday calender or ‘contacts of your contacts’.

No matter if you are a sales person, a recruiter or a consultant. We all want to know how a person looks like after making a call, or attending a meeting or a conference. And we all want to know more about them, either because it facilitates a second conversation or because we would like to recruit someone or sell something. The more we know, the easier the effort. Playing Pick-a-boo has become standard.

The active Pick-a-boo
Let’s identify the active pick a boo effect in social networks. We try to find the person or/and go to a profile page, x-ray the contact or find out details on his mentality, personality or hobbies. So, we take a quick look at the profile and then we are off again. Sometimes, we might be going there for a second or a third time before getting in touch with that person. And the funny thing is: We know that the other person knows that we have been visiting their profile page. Is it because we want them to do the first step. Or we ‘pick-a-boo’ just to let them know, someone is interested.

The passive Pick-a-boo
The passive benefit of the pick a boo effect lies in the feature ‘Who has been to your profile’ application or widget. Although a paid service feature on some social networks (XING and LinkedIn), it is probably the most viewed or reloaded feature of active social ‘medians’, those users who have access to it. Why is this ‘pick a boo’ application so attractive for us? We can…
… receive transparency on the ego-community
… monitor the quantity and quality of visitors to our profiles
… identify our ‘personal branding target group’
… evaluate our job market options
… see how often Google is used for ‘Recruit-Googling’
… see who ‘delivers’ good contacts to us
and finally the best of all parts: Via the passive pick a boo effect, we can contact people and definitely have a starting point for a business and/or private conversation.

Spot On!
Seeing all these benefits of the Pick-a-boo application ‘Who has seen to your profile lately’, it surprises me that the biggest network of all, Facebook, still doesn’t have this application feature. Or will it be coming with the announcement of becoming a paid service platform? We will see…

Curious to hear your view and experience on the Pick-a-boo effect in social networks?

News Update – Best of the Day

Today, the focus is on personal branding and your career…

Are you a top executive? The so called C-level manager? And you want to understand what you resume needs in order to be interesting for recruiters. Meg Guiseppi has 10 top secrets for a great senior-level executive resume.

In our online social networks the term ‘friend’ has a complete different meaning than in our offline world. Getting this straight in terms of a strategy becomes even more complicated. Chris Brogan writes an interesting summary on friends, reputation and endorsement. And he makes us think how we handle this topic.

One thing is for sure… In order to be successful in business we all need a good contact network. Now, in the era of social networks the question rises what is more important: quantity or quality? Thomas Power gives an answer… (although there is no proof it sounds quite realistic).

Interested to hear about your view and how do you handle your friend, colleague, partner or customer relationships… – Tell us about it!

Online Reputation Management bleibt (zeit)aufwendig…

Als ich meine Vision des Personal Web Managers geschrieben habe, dachte ich, es wird sicherlich bald eine solche Dienstleistung des Reputation Coaches für aufstrebende Manager oder stark im Web aktive Persönlichkeiten geben. Derzeit ist interessant zu beobachten, wie sich dieser Plattform-Markt für persönliches Reputation Management in Position bringt.

Es steht eben viel auf dem Spiel: die Bewerbung einer Karriere, die für Nachhaltigkeit einer authentischen und erfolgreichen Persönlichkeit steht. Die Online Reputation wird dabei immer wichtiger für den nächsten Karriereschritt, aber ihr Management bleibt leider trotz unterstützender Plattformen zeitaufwendig. Ein kleiner Überblick…

Bisher galt der amerikanische Dienstleister Reputation Defender als der weltweite ‘Platzhirsch’ im Entfernen oder ‘Geradebiegen’ von bildlich belegbaren Fehltritten oder voreilig getroffenen Statements und Kommentaren, die im Web verewigt sind. Denn, wie wir alle inzwischen wissen sollten: Das Web vergißt nichts – teilweise nur, wenn wir entsprechend nachhelfen. Und so bietet Reputation Defender mit myChild ein Produkt an, das den Ruf und die Privatsphäre des Kindes schon von Kindesbeinen an online schützt.

In Deutschland ist mit my ON-ID eine sehr interessante Plattform am Start, die Online Reputation auf technischer Basis zu handeln, monitoren und optimieren anbietet. Die Web 2.0 Plattform offeriert sehr viele Optionen, das eigene Personal Brand als Visitenkarte (bzw. fast schon im Format eines Online CV aufzubauen (mit zahlreichen Schnittstellen und Widgetfunktionen zu anderen Social Networks).

Am Wochenende erhielt ich nun die neuste Pressemitteilung von Dein Guter Ruf, die mir von meinem Ex-Kollegen Jannis Moutafis zugespielt wurde. Die Nachricht preist die ab sofort kostenlose Suche des (mir noch völlig unbekannten) Reputations-Dienstsleisters an, sowie die Option eine Web-Imageseite zu veröffentlichen. Als Gadget wird der Test „Welcher Online-Typ bin ich“ angeboten, der einem Tips zum persönlichen Reputation Management offeriert (mein Testergebnis siehe Bild).

Hintergrund des Tests: Der Profil Organiser wird hiermit promotet. Dort kann man seine Netzwerk-Profile eingeben und hat diese so im Schnellüberblick und -zugriff. Der vordergründige Vorteil der Übersichtlichkeit, läßt sich mit einem grundlegenden Tip entkräften…

Starte kein Profil in einem sozialen Netzwerk, wo Du nur einen kleinen Mehrwert siehst und evaluiere vorher, ob Du nur aus einer zeitweiligen Zugehörigkeit (Schule, Uni, etc.) oder aus zukünftiger Überlegung (Kontakte halten, Karrierebenefit, etc.) dieses nutzen wirst.

Die Dienstleistungen von Dein Guter Ruf erinnern mich dennoch stark an den Personal Web Manager, denn hier geht es offensichtlich wirklich um den strategischen Ansatz des Reputation Managements mit persönlicher PR-Betreuung. Man bietet vier verschiedene Versionen an: Basis-, Profi-, Premium- und VIP-Manager – von kostenlos bis 129,90 EUR pro Monat. Letztere verspricht sogar…

- Wir legen für Sie Profile in mit Ihnen abgestimmten Portalen an.
- Wir integrieren bereits vorhandene Inhalte in Foren, Blogs, Fachportalen.
- Wir prüfen monatlich Ihre Reputation und liefern für Sie geeignete Portal- und Themenvorschläge.
- Wir führen für Sie geeignete Online-PR Aktivitäten durch.

Insofern wirken die Preise vernünftig und erinnern an das Preismodell von Reputation Defender.

Kurztest: Dein Guter Ruf
Suche: Die Suche ist unbefriedigend. Bei 466.000 Googletreffern zu meinem Namen fand Dein Guter Ruf rund 70. Einige hatten überhaupt nichts mit mir zu tun. Zahlreiche positive, wie Interviews und Gastbeiträge von/mit mir, wurden gar nicht gefunden.
Image-Webseite: Ein Bild kann nicht gefunden, hochgeladen oder integriert werden (vielleicht in einer Bezahlversion?!). Der erste Eindruck eines Menschen zählt – und der Mensch verkauft sich in der Karrierebewerbung über ein persönliches Bild. Man verschickt ja auch keinen Lebenslauf ohne Foto.
Paid Services: Daß man für zahlreiche Funktionen (z.B. Kommentar eines Suchtreffers) im Web 2.0 Zeitlater bezahlen muß, ist irgendwie Web 1.0 Welt. Zumal my ON-ID hier schon diese Funktion ohne Aufpreis anbietet.
Fazit. Unspektakulär, nüchtern, sachlich, nicht personalisierbar – aber vielleicht ist die Form genau das, was zukünftig für das Personalwesen die nachhaltige Bewerbung ist. Wer weiß…

Spot On!
Neben my ON-ID macht sich mit Dein Guter Ruf ein weiterer Anbieter auf, unsere individuelle Online Reputation im Auge zu behalten und zu professionalisieren. Mein Urteil bleibt dennoch kritisch. Die Idee Reputation Management mit persönlicher PR-Strategie zu verknüpfen, gefällt mir gut (schon wegen seiner Nähe zu ‘meinem’ Personal Web Manager). Man müsste es fast einmal einem Test unterziehen, um zu sehen, wie erfolgreich sich die Arbeit für das Personal Branding zeigt (Erfahrungsberichte bitte an mich schicken). my ON-ID ist dennoch derzeit einen ganzen Schritt voraus und bietet die spannendere und zielgenauere Lösung das Online Reputation in der Spur zu halten. Reputation Management bleibt weiterhin aufwendig, vor allem zeitaufwendig, denn am besten wird sie derzeit noch von jedem Einzelnen kritisch beäugt, bewacht und bewertet.

Personal Branding – how to build your career 3.0

Personal branding is the way to stand out of the crowd and being noticed in some special way in the business world which makes you unique. It is your value proposition for the future of your career. In a session at the webinale09 I held a speech about ‘Career 3.0 – split between personal branding and productivity’ and gave some projections on the relevance of social media activities and how these affect your career development.

Today, we want to learn from Dwight Cribb, founder of his successful recruitment agency, what professional recruiters think about personal branding and what is the relevance for personal branding. You can follow his offline and online thoughts via his Twitter account.

Q: What is the first thing you do when somebody is being suggested as a perfect candidate?
Dwight Cribb Of course I will first probe what the relationship between the candidate and the person suggesting him is. Supposing that the recommendation is made during a phone conversation, I will in parallel check the candidate’s profile on Xing. If that does not provide the information I require I will probe deeper with people search engines.

Q: Let’s imagine somebody is not doing anything for personal branding. This person is not blogging, micro-blogging or social networking. Does this have a positive or negative impact on your perception of that person?
Dwight Cribb This largely depends on the type of position I am recruiting for, both in terms of seniority and discipline. I would normally expect someone in a directly client facing role or someone who communicates directly on behalf of a division or company to have at least some presence on the web. It is, however, true that not being on a social networking site is today more of statement than being on one. A few years ago one could be forgiven for thinking of people who had not yet discovered Xing, LinkedIn and facebook as being somewhat backward or conservative. As it is today largely impossible to not have noticed these networks flourish, we must assume that those not on them have shunned them on purpose. This may be a good strategy if one relies on others to communicate with clients and the public, especially as a senior manager. A C-Level executive will through his utterances on social networks have a severe impact on the brand communication, it thus needs to be 100% in line with the other communication, if not it will cause at best confusion and at worst it will undermine the credibility of the brand.

As for blogging, I think that is a very personal decision and I would never think badly of anyone who did not blog. I may, however, think badly of someone who blogs badly or in a manner inappropriate to his or her position. So overall it would not reflect badly if I found out nothing about a person online, it would just peak my interest and make me more curious to receive other information in the form of a CV or a recommendation from a third party.

Q: Will personal branding and the individual online reputation replace the traditional CV some day?
Dwight Cribb I doubt whether it will replace the CV, it is more likely that it will continue to augment the CV. Online reputation is a fantasy product. We each spin our profiles in a manner which we feel supports the image we want to convey. It is self marketing. A CV is more strongly based in chronological fact and provides a picture which comes closer to the reality than the pictures which get drawn in communities.

Q: If everybody has a strong personal brand, don’t companies fear these people could get chased by some competitor and recruiters? Or that employees just work for their own career purpose?
Dwight Cribb Most successful employees work for the own career advancement. But in the long term they will only achieve this by delivering results to their employers, because people are very good at spotting meaningless self marketing and will not fall for it for long. Good employees have always had a strong personal brand (also called reputation). It has been true in all areas and across the ages, if you do something well you will be admired by your peers and your reputation will spread. This means that others will try and employ your services, sometimes via a recruiter.

Q: What is your advice on how companies have to handle personal branding of the employees in the future?
Dwight Cribb Let people define themselves what they are comfortable with. Give them a clear guideline what company resources and what company information they can use to build their reputation and to what extent they must make clear what is their opinion what the company’s.

Q: What do you think of the personal web managers vision?
Dwight Cribb There are instances where this makes perfect sense, but I belive they are far and few between. This is a role which has precedence in the offline world, many high-profile business people, politicians and celebrities employ someone with this brief. Whether they do their job online, offline or in both really does not make much difference. We have come to expect that the picture we get presented of these people has been scripted and planned in detail. We even often admire the way in which they craftily manipulate their image. But I think we would be less inclined to condone or accept this level of abstraction in communication in our closer environment of colleagues, family and friends. A facebook status update from a friend loses relevance if I know that it was posted his or her personal web consultant, who was busy making them be liked by their friends and acquaintances.

Q: Give us 3 tips how to create a personal brand, please.
Dwight Cribb Be yourself, be honest, laugh at times.

Thank you for your time and your advice, Mr. Cribb.

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