I have been active on social media for several years, but have only recently begun to think of it as a tool for helping to further my career. I have chosen to keep my Facebook account private, using a pseudonym and maintaining high privacy settings. While this may change in the future, for the moment I am using LinkedIn, Xing and Twitter to develop my professional digital footprint.
LinkedIn
In contrast to the cluttered layout of many other social media platforms, I like the simple, authoritative CV-like style of LinkedIn. While you can choose to write longer descriptions about a particular job or experience, I have chosen to keep my profile simple and fact-based, like a traditional CV. In this way, I hope that a business contact or prospective employer would be able to glean a basic outline of my experience and qualifications quickly and easily. I did however, face some difficulties in deciding how best to explain my current role as it involves both a professional placement element linked directly to the Postgraduate Diploma programme in DIT. In the end, I chose to briefly explain the EOP in the Summary section and then separate the two elements into Experience and Education. I faced a similar challenge in deciding how best to present my Masters, as it was an international programme involving semesters at three different universities. This inflexibility is a disadvantage of LinkedIn, but I feel it is important to be able to demonstrate clearly to prospective employers in Germany that I have studied at a German university through German. I therefore decided to separate each semester and give each university its own entry.
My LinkedIn profile: http://de.linkedin.com/pub/daniel-farrell/78/8a9/271
Xing
Completing this assignment gave me the perfect opportunity to set up my profile on Xing, a website very similar to LinkedIn which is hugely popular in Germany. While LinkedIn is also widely used here, Xing is also a huge player and I have been asked by several contacts if I have a profile on it in the six months since I started my placement. As I may choose to stay in Germany after my placement, I felt it would be worthwhile to set up my Xing profile now. When I went to register, I did not initially expect to be able to connect with many people, but I have been surprised at the amount of names and faces I have come across in such a short time. This has demonstrated to me the power and influence of networking and the usefulness of sites such as Xing and LinkedIn in maintaining contact with people. Xing operates on much the same principles as LinkedIn and the basic layout and content of my profile are much the same.
My Xing profile: https://www.xing.com/profile/Daniel_Farrell2?sc_o=mxb_p
Twitter
I have had a profile on Twitter for a few years, but have never been an active poster. However, now that I am helping to manage the Tourism Ireland Twitter feed for the German market, I have become more active and aware of its potential impact on people's perceptions of me. While I do not use it solely for work purposes, I am particularly careful about the content that I post or re-tweet as my profile is public.
My Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/danjfar
In contrast to the cluttered layout of many other social media platforms, I like the simple, authoritative CV-like style of LinkedIn. While you can choose to write longer descriptions about a particular job or experience, I have chosen to keep my profile simple and fact-based, like a traditional CV. In this way, I hope that a business contact or prospective employer would be able to glean a basic outline of my experience and qualifications quickly and easily. I did however, face some difficulties in deciding how best to explain my current role as it involves both a professional placement element linked directly to the Postgraduate Diploma programme in DIT. In the end, I chose to briefly explain the EOP in the Summary section and then separate the two elements into Experience and Education. I faced a similar challenge in deciding how best to present my Masters, as it was an international programme involving semesters at three different universities. This inflexibility is a disadvantage of LinkedIn, but I feel it is important to be able to demonstrate clearly to prospective employers in Germany that I have studied at a German university through German. I therefore decided to separate each semester and give each university its own entry.
My LinkedIn profile: http://de.linkedin.com/pub/daniel-farrell/78/8a9/271
Completing this assignment gave me the perfect opportunity to set up my profile on Xing, a website very similar to LinkedIn which is hugely popular in Germany. While LinkedIn is also widely used here, Xing is also a huge player and I have been asked by several contacts if I have a profile on it in the six months since I started my placement. As I may choose to stay in Germany after my placement, I felt it would be worthwhile to set up my Xing profile now. When I went to register, I did not initially expect to be able to connect with many people, but I have been surprised at the amount of names and faces I have come across in such a short time. This has demonstrated to me the power and influence of networking and the usefulness of sites such as Xing and LinkedIn in maintaining contact with people. Xing operates on much the same principles as LinkedIn and the basic layout and content of my profile are much the same.
My Xing profile: https://www.xing.com/profile/Daniel_Farrell2?sc_o=mxb_p
I have had a profile on Twitter for a few years, but have never been an active poster. However, now that I am helping to manage the Tourism Ireland Twitter feed for the German market, I have become more active and aware of its potential impact on people's perceptions of me. While I do not use it solely for work purposes, I am particularly careful about the content that I post or re-tweet as my profile is public.
My Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/danjfar
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