Beyond LinkedIn For Professional Social Media to Help Your Career

Next week, I am talking to the ANU computer project students about using social media for your career. Some thoughts. Suggestions, corrections and comments welcome:

1. Can you?: Before setting up a profile on social media, consider if your employer, or your government allows particular platforms, or any social media presence at all. In particular, if you are considering a career in government computer security you need to not overshare person, or professional, details online. I had a high online profile before joining HQ Australian Defence Force. So it was not possible to undo that, or simply disappear from public view, so I continued to blog about public aspects of my job.

2. Commercial Sites: 

A LinkedIn Profile

Here is a screenshot of my LinkedIn page. Note at the bottom "Open to work" and "providing services".

Now owned by Microsoft, LinkedIn was developed specifically to help recruiters find staff. The free version of the service allows entering a CV, and to receive offers of jobs. There are also discussion forms on professional topics. A very useful feature is being able to search who you might know at a particular organisation, location, or field, and people you know who know people, to 2 degrees of separation. Currently I have 1,161 followers and 500+ connections. 

3. Professional Sites: 

A Collabratec profile,IEEE 2022

 Professional associations have tried to provide LinkedIn type services, with limited success. One of the better ones is IEEE Collabratec. This provides for a CV, and discussion forums. The ability to search for people is more limited than LinkedIn.

4. Personal Blogs:

Higher Education Whisperer Blog

Professionals, especially those who work freelance, or on short contracts, may like to have their own blog. I use The Higher Education Whisperer to write about issues to do with universities. However, keep in mind, your client, or employer, needs to be happy with what you write. As a part time academic, the university is comfortable with what I write. When a public servant working for a security agency, I had to be very careful with every post.