Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Do's and Don'ts of Social and Professional Networking

Do

If you want your Facebook page to be viewable by potential employers, or you just want to separate your friends, you can make a list specifically for professional colleagues and limit their access. This will help keep your personal and professional image separate.

Make sure you only put appropriate pictures on your profile. Before you put a personal photo on a webpage that professionals may be viewing, ask yourself: “Would I hang this picture on the wall of my office?”

Find people that you worked with at previous jobs and add them to your connections/friends list. These people can be prospective references who can help you get a job.

Use LinkedIn for more than just putting yourself out there. If someone contacts you for an interview, look them up. It will never hurt to know a little something about the person who is going to be interviewing you. If anything, it could help ease the tension by giving you something to talk about before or after the interview.

Talk, ask questions, browse, invite. You are networking, so network!

Don’t

If you do not have anything personal on your Facebook page, you can make it public (as long as you keep everything on it professional). This is rare, as Facebook is not designed for professional but social networking. So… Do not make your profile on Facebook viewable to “anyone” or “friends of friends”.

Do not add people to your friends/connections list who you do not know. You never know if someone wants to dig further into your personality and see what your friends are like. You do not want professionals to see your professional webpage, only to click on one of your “friend’s” pictures of… (use your imagination). Remember, guilt by association.

Do not add any posts or comments that you might regret in the future. The internet is forever. Even if you only add something, then delete it the next day, someone could have downloaded it or saved your page to their computer. Just be careful.

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