Laura Miller

Doing some work to clean up an online presence is good practice for anyone, but especially someone looking to enter the job market. Cleaning up personal posts, plus actively posting new, more positive aspects will go a long way for students looking to have a good online presence. Developing your own personal brand is the new resume, and is probably the most important step for a new job seeker. It’s my job as Career counselor to be able to teach developing a brand to my students.

As a career counselor, I would encourage a student to think of their entire online presence as a marketing strategy for attracting potential employers. It is now important to have an online presence in the fields the student is seeking a career in, as well as specifically adding their own brand in a way that will attract employers (find me, become interested in me). A tactical use of keywords specific to the desired career will increase the number of potential employers that will find your students online presence.

While I'm not a huge fan of what we are calling "Social Currency", I can see why it would be beneficial for companies to recruit and hire employees that have a positive and beneficial presence (or brand) on social media.  Rather than looking at past achievements on a static resume, being able to determine in real-time how a potential candidate would work to solve problems would be a great way for a company to find the best candidates for their positions.  As a career counselor, it is important to understand how recruitment is changing in this new digital environment and… >>>

I like how the 5 keys  to success provides a good framework for all of the different aspects of being an employee and allows us to think carefully through each key and help our students prepare.  I especially like the ideas around exploring emotional states as well as physical states in the Be a Professional key.  Your emotional state can have  huge impact on your job performance, and I think it is so important to talk about that while the student is still in high school.

I think it is so important to spend time in class on issues around body language.  It is such a huge part of how we communicate with each other, yet most of us never realize how much it can affect the communication and potential relationship with the other person (in this case, an employer). I know it can be uncomfortable for a teacher to address issues around body language, but if it can be done, it is so valuable for the student!

I like the idea of using the job posting and also information about the company to help write a really strong cover letter.  Also, I appreciate asking students to really consider who they would list as references and to consider what those people may say about you as a candidate.

I think it's a great idea to have the students Google themselves to see what is out there and what potential employers may see.  Also good to have them consider all of their social media accounts and ensure there is nothing on any account that would seem negative to an employer.  Watch for silly email names and usernames as well!  I also like the idea of searching outside of online job postings, as well as keeping everything organized.