Finbarr McCarthy

Cloud Computing & Social Media (Technologies of The Future)

Posts Tagged Employment

Building Your Personal Brand Online to Help Your Career

Jul 14

Posted by Finbarr McCarthy in General Rants, OnLine Marketing | 9 Comments

There is no one has any doubts about the fact that the job market is a tough place right now, jobless numbers seem to be at generational highs and depending on where you are in the world, unemployment is probably in double digits in percentage terms.  The media are having a field-day putting the shockers into us all, they are telling us stories where 500 professionals (Architects, Accountants, Lawyers, Etc) applied for a single job in McDonald’s.  Perhaps its true, I cant say for sure that its not, but it smells of old media trying to grab or retain readership with sensational headlines.  I work in the recruitment industry and yes its true that, job vacancies are down and job applicants are up, but not nearly to the extent that you would think from the media headlines.  Without underestimating the devastating impact of unemployment on an individual, you have to appreciate that the jobs market is a cyclical thing and depending on who you listen to we are either at or approaching the bottom of the cycle.  I cant predict when things will begin to improve again, but I have no doubt that an improvement is on the way.  In any case, right now, competition for jobs is tougher than it has been for a long while and to give yourself the best chance of success there are a number of things that you can do improve your odds. Specifically I am referring to “Building Your Personal Brand Online to Help Your Career”.

Here is a list of things that you can (and should) control yourself

1: Clean up your act
Many people have for the past couple of years been very open about putting all sorts of information about themselves on Social Networks. Check out any profiles you may have created and see if there is any content that you would not necessarily want a prospective employer to see.  Don’t stop with just your own profile, check out your friends profiles just in-case they may have something on their pages that could come back to haunt you.

2: Google Yourself
Simply go to Google and type in your name and see what comes up (do this in Yahoo and Bing also), dig through the results and see if you are happy with what information is available about you.  The first thing to do is to concentrate on anything that’s not portraying you in a positive light, can you access and amend the source information? If yes amend it, if not find out who can amend it - but most importantly get it taken care of.  Think I am over reacting? In a 2007 survey by Career Builder one in four managers admitted to using search engines to screen candidates, and more than half of those eliminated candidates based on what they found, I can only suspect that since then, this practice has become more mainstream. Some of the main areas of concern that hiring managers highlighted were;

  • Information about alcohol or drug use (41% of managers said this was a top concern)
  • Inappropriate photos or information posted on a candidate’s page (40%)
  • Poor communication skills (29%)
  • Bad-mouthing of former employers or fellow employees (28%)
  • Inaccurate qualifications (27%)
  • Unprofessional screen names (22%)
  • Notes showing links to criminal behavior (21%)
  • Confidential information about past employers (19%)

3: Create a LinkedIn profile
LinkedIn is a professional online network and in my view it is essential to create and maintain an up to date profile there.  LinkedIn is also a very good place to build and maintain a your network of past and current contacts and it can really help you to keep in touch with people you may otherwise loose contact with.  Apart from that LinkedIn enables you to create an online profile which outlines your current and past employment details, your professional affiliations and achievements and there is also a feature which allows people to recommend (reference) you.  Make sure to add in an appropriate amount of keywords under which prospective employers might search.

4: Participate
Its not good enough to just create good profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook, if you dont participate in discussions, groups etc there is a very high chance that you will never get any attention.  If you have specific professional skills or have a passion on a specific topic there is a very good chance that there is a group on LinkedIn for like minded people, if so join the group, if there is no such group consider creating a group and search out and invite like minded people to join.

5: Turn OnLine Contacts into OffLine Contacts
Consider attending events organised by your groups and contacts on LinkedIn and Facebook, Online connections are a good starting point but it can be very helpful to get out and actually meet some of the connections you have made.  There are several examples of this from attending Open Coffee sessions to seminars on your area of interest.

6: Blog or Create a Website
This might not be for everyone but creating your own blog or even a simple website can be a very enjoyable and beneficial project.  In particular if you are extremely passionate about a specific topic it is an extremely enjoyable pursuit, be warned though, if you are only vaugely interested in what you are writing about it will quickly become apparent to your readers and there is also a very high chance that you will give up yourself.  I am extremely passionate about Cloud Computing and the Internet and get great pleasure in sharing my thought with others on the subject.

In conclusion, even if you are not in the job market right now it is still worth your while considering the points above.  Because of the way data is stored and propogated on the internet, it can take anywhere from days to months to get any unwanted information to drop out of the search engine indexes (even after the source information has been deleted / amended) and the same amount of time to get your desired professional information appearing where and when you want it.  The job market will bounce back and getting control of your own personal brand now will most certainly pay dividends in the long term.

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A new way of working

Jun 24

Posted by Finbarr McCarthy in Cloud Computing, Future Web | 2 Comments

In my last post I outlined the direction that the technology behind cloud computing is heading.  This time I would like to talk briefly about a few of the more down to earth changes that the emergence of cloud computing will have and the social impact that will result.

I believe that we are at the precipice of a whole new way of working.  Traditional thinking suggests that once we have completed our education we go out and get a job. For my parent’s generation the objective was to secure a job for life, me and my generation took a different take on that and a good deal of people my age change jobs on average every three to five years.  I think that a good deal of the next generation will not necessarily hold down regular jobs in the same way that we do today.

Before I dive right into justifying this argument consider a few changes that have happened in the past and think about how they might help us predict what is going to happen in the future.

As the standard (and cost) of living increased in Western Europe and North America the cost of manufacturing spiralled and many companies relocated labour intensive / low margin operations to Asian countries, principally China. These companies typically continued their design and research & development at their headquarters.

More recently there was a huge rush for companies to engage B.P.O.’s (Business Process Outsourcers) to offload some of the non-core processes that were typically carried out in-house.  Typically the B.P.O.’s were located in India and did the work at a fraction of the cost.  While there is still significant debate over the success of many B.P.O. initiatives, the reality is that there are nearly two million people employed in India today in the industry.  In fact the B.P.O. industry in India is so successful that skills shortages, 20% annual wage inflation and skyrocketing real estate & infrastructure costs are threatening the competitiveness of India as a destination of choice for outsourcing.  Considering that the companies that provide these services must also charge a margin on the services the cost justification for traditional B.P.O. is diminishing fast.

I can’t remember who coined the expression “we don’t go to work anymore - we just work”, but it wraps up nicely the way I see things moving. Remote working has been on the table for several years but it has been fraught with difficulties, not least of which has been connectivity and security. Consider the impact cloud computing has on this, because the platforms and software are now on the cloud and accessible over the internet it is possible for anyone with a broadband connection to access their systems with the same performance that they would have in the office.

The fact that we are currently in a global recession and unemployment has risen sharply doesn’t necessarily mean that companies don’t have plenty of tasks and projects they want to undertake - it is probably more down to restrictive budgets and commitment avoidance (not wanting to commit to employment contracts).  There are many people who have come out of traditional employment are now freelancing and doing task based assignments for companies all over the world.

Some of the facilitators behind this are companies like ODesk, Elance and Guru.  These companies provide a marketplace for companies who need to get projects done, and people with the skills to undertake the project work come to bid on the assignments.  The geographical limits of traditional employment are no longer a factor with this approach.

While these sites currently cater primarily for the IT market, I think it is only a matter of time before there is much broader adoption of this model in other sectors.

Starting a small business has typically had a number of barriers to entry. The biggest barrier has typically been the range of skills needed to take a good idea and turn it into a tangible product or service. Typically most people starting out in business can’t afford to hire all the skills / buy all the equipment needed to compete with established players.  Cloud computing, PaaS (platform as a service) and WaaS (workforce as a service) have changed this.  Say for example I wanted setup a business to publish a magazine - what would I need?

Editors, Journalists, Copywriters, Photographers, Printers, Marketers, IT Staff, Accountants, Premises, Printing Presses, Distribution & Warehousing, Servers etc, etc……

I would probably do a little a little mental arithmetic and give up.

However, with the introduction of all the services I can now get on the web, and the cloud, I can now setup my servers on Amazon AWS, buy my images from Getty Images, Hire my editors, journalists and copywriters on ODesk, get my IT support from Guru and get MagCloud to print and deliver my magazines.  The same type of scenario is also becoming a reality if I want to design and manufacture consumer goods, there are services coming on stream everyday where providers will design and manufacture nearly anything for you.

From an individuals standpoint there are immense opportunities to become part of many of these service offerings, or for the entrepreneur the availability of skills, talent and services, “on-tap” provides unprecedented opportunities.

I certainly think the future is looking very bright and exciting.

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