What do we understand from what is meant by having a professional profile? We should not neglect the importance of having a professional profile on the internet. It represents us through the impressions we leave on both the internet, and the real us.
As we leave impressions to new people we meet each day, they do not know us as well as our friends, and one way for them to know more, is the internet.
Source: Image International Group’s Youtube video
Jon-Michail mentioned in the video, that our profile reflects everything we put into it, and that people make assumptions of us based on the amount of information they can get of us. Personal branding is about showing how different we are from others, what makes us stand out, and how do we appeal to our audience.
Source: Khalid Shah’s LinkedIn
Professional profile – why do we need it? There are various social media sites which can be a part of your professional profile. LinkedIn is an important platform of such. It is strictly professional which should reveal only your previous working experiences, and previous studied institutions, where people can establish connections with others.
LinkedIn has already become a cost-saving alternative for companies to source for employees to fill in positions. According to a case study by Meredith M. Skeels & Jonathan Grudin (2009), recruiters look out for potential employees through the platform, and that it can also be used to keep track of what previous colleagues are doing currently. It is referred to as an “updated CV” often.
What do we mean by authentic? And why?
The answer is clear. Anyone could come up with a profile that does not resemble his/her in the real world.
Source: Eva Y. Chen’s Youtube video
Eva Y. Chen talked about the distrust that can be formed when the profile/website does not represent the real us. She has also given us a basic guide on creating our profile/website alignment of our online and offline images.
Source: BBC News video posted on news24 channel on Youtube
Michael Weiss has highlighted the various important factors which should be posted to focused on our accomplishments in our previous employment. Readers are less concerned with our life stories, therefore we should avoid inputting unnecessary information.
I would like to remind everyone that we should always try to use the same photos and names on different profiles/sites to show consistency and be compelling at the same time to allow ease in identifying you. The video below exhibits basic guidelines for managing authentic image.
Source: Image International Group’s Youtube video
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References
Anjali Athavaley, (2007) Wall Street Journal: Job References You Can’t Control
BBC, (2013) Job hunting: How to promote yourself online
Meredith M. Skeels & Jonothan Grudin, (2009) When Social Networks Cross Boundaries: A Case Study of Workplace Use of Facebook and LinkedIn
Peter Cappelli, (2001) Making the Most of On-Line Recruiting pp.139-146
Exploring a new journey 
Hi nicholas !
It’s nice reading your post especially with all the videos to help me understand as i learn better through moving images 🙂
As myself do not have an online professional profile yet, your posts gave me more guidelines to help me start one! You stated that aligning offline and online image is important which i agree to a great extend as I missed out on my post. And the importance of having an online authentic professional profile to stand out from others but you can’t control others “referencing” (to put in a nice way) your profile. You may have few similar profiles online, and may get misunderstood. How would you prevent that from happening?
Feel free to drop-by my blog and comment too! Cheers!
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Hi Emilia
I am glad that my post was able to help you with creating your authentic professional profile. I would like to ask if you would prefer using a single profile or multiple profiles for professional and personal use? I have come to a deeper understanding on this topic and I have expanded my learnings on my latest post.
I still think that the alignment of online and offline images is very important in terms of authenticity to eliminate the distrust. I would strongly recommend you to drop by my latest post so that you can have some information on my latest learnings.
Please be precise on what you mean by few similar profiles? It is not difficult to differentiate different profiles in terms of the information we allow others to see and the type of information we post on the respective profiles. In any case you are referring to confusion between your profiles, you may wish to use other names if you were to separate personal and professional profiles.
I hope the above mentioned have helped you in a way or another in clearing your doubts, for anymore information you need which cannot be found on my latest post, I would be more than happy to find out for you as it helps me in building my profiles too!
Thank you for dropping by my post! TGIF! 🙂
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Hello Nicholas 🙂
I really enjoyed reading your blog post and I found it extremely relatable! Especially on the parts of posting information that the readers would be more interested in, rather than our own day to day activities which we enjoy posting.
Just a little questions. The first one being that even if we post day to day activities onto those profiles, does it necessarily be seen as ‘not needed’? Would it be possible for potential employers to look out for these other sides of their future employee? Such as work and life balance? They may not be interested, but could it still serve as a plus point in a way?
Thanks! 🙂 feel free to post comments on my blog too.
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Hi Julia,
Thank you for dropping by my post! It is alright to post what we do daily, but on professional profiles, it might not be advisable if the activities are only about “hey guys, look what I had for lunch today!” or “heading down to star gazing tonight!”
Potential employers may be looking out for what you might be doing to look out for certain attributes like your interest and passion, or even activities which says much about your creativity or physical engagements.
However, they may be more interested in the things that creates value in your life which may benefit your future employers. Some employers like to create a sociable workplace where co-workers have ‘after-work’ gatherings and communication among one another.
In creating profiles, you may wish to differentiate your personal profile from professional by using separate profiles to achieve work-life balance, where you can post countless images or statuses on everything you wish to share with your friends and family, while maintaining a professional life on your professional profiles.
Activities like participating in enrichment courses or having a hobby which marks your creativity can act as a plus point, but employers do not wish to see too many of such as well. Just the same as your friends and family may not be interested in the content of your meetings and the daily reports at work.
I hope these information can help you clear your doubts and contribute to your profiles. My recent learnings regarding separating and combining personal and professional profiles can be found on my latest post. I look forward to reading your reflections to understand your views better! 🙂
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