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What makes a good shop window?
27 January 2010
By Hannah Dee
I've heard that the first thing an appointment committee does (when faced with a pile of CVs) is to head for Google. This gives us job hunters a few extra headaches - we have to make sure our site is as up-to-date as our CV, for a start. For a job-hunter, your website really is a shop window, and what that shop is selling is you.
Researcher mobility adds another level of headache - you end up with orphan websites that you can't edit sitting around on old university servers, or your website gets deleted the moment you move on. And then you have personal sites, LinkedIn, Facebook, academia.edu and all sorts of other online detritus.
The reason I'm posting this isn't to give advice though - it's to ask a question. I'm not sure what makes a good academic site. Obviously, a publication list has to go on there. And contact details. But what else? Is a blog a good thing or does it make you look like you've got too much time on your hands? How about photos from conferences? How about more general photos from lab outings? Technical tips? Overviews of research statements? Photos of your kids/pets? Twitter integration? Links to linkedin?
(The related topic of how to ensure that your home page, wherever it is, moves up the Google pagerank and isn't trumped by some drunken fancy dress photos on Facebook could be one for another post - the whole "managing your online brand" problem - if people are interested.)
We explored digital identity within the online communities workshop at the 2009 Vitae Research Staff Conference - there are a couple of examples of researchers 'shop windows' on the presentation slides:
http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Vitae-research-staff-conference-B1-Online-Communities.pdf.170961.download
Elizabeth Dodson
27 January 2010 at 02:30 PMpermalink report this comment
Hi Elizabeth -
Those slides are interesting, and the point about being careful what you say online is so true. I'm interested in how you chose the sites to show - I think the "frogblog" is a good example of a research related site which has some fine outreach and some great content, but is the sort of thing that would take a lot of time to maintain. Do you think that that's what we should be aiming for? Or will something simpler do?
Hannah Dee
27 January 2010 at 02:47 PMpermalink report this comment
Emma actually chose the example sites, with frogblog being one of her personal favourites. It is a fairly high maintenance example, but has actually brought the author a lot of esteem in his field - having brought together an online community of researchers with shared interests.
I think at a basic level it is good to have some form of web presence that you have direct control over - and there is no reason why this shouldn't be something simple.
Elizabeth Dodson
27 January 2010 at 02:58 PMpermalink report this comment
My thought is to go beyond the CV in terms of an online presence. Assuming interested people (employers, funders, media, etc.) already have a copy of your CV, your website should have additional information.
So things that go beyond explaining your publications and conference presentation swould be in order (at least in my opinion). For example, a research statement, a teaching philosophy, recent teaching evaluations, even a professional blog (you mention some of these).
I would hesitate to put anything too personal (like a personal blog). Photos may be okay, as long as they are professionally related (i.e., not pets, kids, etc.). But then, this may just be my stuffy self talking here.
Matthew Salois
29 January 2010 at 09:37 PMpermalink report this comment
maybe slightly aside but definitely relevant is that if you are on Facebook this comes up very prominently in any Google search on your name. Of course your Facebook profile is private but the Google search does show your profile picture and gives a selection of your friends, pages and groups you have joined. When looking for jobs it may be wise to review what you may have done in jest....
Tennie Videler
02 February 2010 at 12:39 PMpermalink report this comment
I believe you can further restrict Facebook searches so only your profile picture is visible (or even only your name) - generally speaking, for a profile picture it is wise to use a professional looking photo or something fairly anonymous - as sites like 123people.co.uk collate these publically posted photos and make them available in name searches for some time to come! Anyone using Facebook though would be wise to recheck all security settings as you may find for instance that public visibility of individual photo albums has changed...
Elizabeth Dodson
02 February 2010 at 03:26 PMpermalink report this comment
For the Facebook problem, there is another solution... Use a different name.
There are 11 pages of "Hannah Dee" or "Dee Hannah" profiles on Facebook, but I assure you that none of them are me.
Hannah Dee
02 February 2010 at 03:36 PMpermalink report this comment
One issue that we discussed in the conference workshop, was the potential problem of other people of the same name being mistaken for you! This is where people Googling job candidates can be somewhat controversial - as they may find some terribly inappropriate stuff that you have nothing to do with!
This is one of the reasons why it is a good idea to make sure you do have at least one professional profile with photographs that is somewhere near the top of the Google search for your name... at least that should clarify your identity!
Elizabeth Dodson
02 February 2010 at 05:07 PMpermalink report this comment
Just thought, the digital researcher event at the British Library on the 15th of March will address some of these issues.... http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/56271-205821/Digital-researcher-Managing-your-networks-and-building-your-profile.html#pageInfo
Tennie Videler
05 February 2010 at 10:39 AMpermalink report this comment
Career realism has this great post '3 questions all hiring managers ask themselves when considering you for a job'. The first and second questions are to do with personality and they will answer that question online.... http://www.careerealism.com/3-questions-all-hiring-managers-asks-themselves-when-considering-you-for-the-job/
The post mentions this pdf booklet by Chris Brogan on 'personal branding' which I think might be a good starting point for creating your own shop window: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/img/broganbranding.pdf
Tennie Videler
24 March 2010 at 09:14 PMpermalink report this comment
Having looked at that career realism link - I hope it's not true! The first question is, "Do I like you?" - which I can't imagine fits well with employment law. I agree that people make decisions based on emotion all the time, but an interview panel has to be objective and in my experience has to clearly justify any recruitment decisions made. Having sat on interview panels myself, I've never made a decision based on who I like the most - it has always been about who is most equipped to do the job. I admit that it can be hard to turn down the person that you think you'd most enjoy working with, for the person you think will best fulfil the role - but in the interests of fairness its the way it has to work. Having said that - in terms of getting consultancy jobs, I imagine that personality, image and branding go a long way...
Elizabeth Dodson
25 March 2010 at 09:55 AMpermalink report this comment