http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html Feed for What makes a good shop window? en-gb http://vitae.ac.uk 23-Mar-2010 14:49:39 http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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... http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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 http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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 http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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! http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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. http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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... http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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.... http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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. http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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. http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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? http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html 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 http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/207951/What-makes-a-good-shop-window.html