With social media usage, are we seeing the need for an employee brand?

With all of us having an increased online presence, will this mean that we will no longer need a resume – our online reputation will speak for us. In his blog “why bother having a resume?”, Seth Godin asserts that examples of your most recent work, your online reputation and/or a compelling blog easily accessed through your online presence can certainly help get you your next job.

You may think worrying about your online reputation is only for serious high flyers, but it isn’t, not any more. In my line of work I speak to a lot of people who are responsibile for recruitment. Quite a number have mentioned en passant that they do a quick online search on prospective candidates as part of their evaluation process. With so much that has been said about managing and owning our online reputation, are we seeing the advent of the employee brand?

If our employee brand is reflected in our online presence, by having fun on social media sites are we potentially affecting our future employment prospects? We all have many different faces that we choose to show to different people at different times. (Which one is real – without therapy will we ever know or do we even need to?) There is the person we are at work, with friends, with family … the list can be endless. There is an argument forming that it may not be a good thing for the whole of us to be visible to the online world with some people even withdrawing from their online networks (Kaiser).

Friends of mine who are free lance are accutely aware of the impact showing too much of yourself can have on potential work. They are very controlling of their personal brand on Facebook, MySpace et al. I now find myself self-censoring what I say on my facebook profile these days as my network is no longer just friends but clients and work colleagues too. I don’t necessarily want everyone to know when I have a hang over or what I have been up to over the weekend. And I’m fairly tame in what I get up to these days.

If you look around FaceBook there are so many groups where people are venting their spleen. When we look at online reputation for a company we want to know what people are saying but turning the tables what does it say about the people who start these groups and how much would we want to employ some of these people.

With the recent merger of Westpac and St George banks there is the group If we wanted to work for Westpac we would have. There are some quite candid comments from some of the 160 members which could impact the employer brand of Westpac but it could rebound on the individual if recruiters are on facebook as it may make them think twice when it came to deciding between two candidates for a job. There are also the angry people out there who start groups like The List – companies to be boycotted . Whilst making some interesting points about the organisations mentioned it can reflect badly on the person who started it – but then again this person probably isn’t looking to work for any of the companies mentioned anyway – but what about in five years time?

Is there a difference between a corporate site and a careers site?

How often does the corporate site let down the careers site? We know the opposite can be true. With HR owning the careers section and MarComms owning the corporate site the experience isn’t always consistent. I know the rationale is that they have different target audiences and need to convey different messages and information - but does that really still hold true in these times of customers being potential employees being potential investors being potential brand advocates or detractors?

Surely the overall experience of an organistion impacts the brand no matter what the initial touch point. The corporate site has as much impact on potential candidates as the careers site if not more if it is particularly good or bad.

A recent review “What the latest minds are doing with their new websites” – http://adage.com/columns/article?article-id=126674 showcased some amazing corporate sites that creative agencies in the US have recently launched. It introduced me to www.barbariangroup.com which I thought does an amazing job at communicating an essence of the culture and personality of the agency – it made me want to work there and that was without there being any separate employer brand – it didn’t need one. Whether this ‘promise’ is carrried through in the employee experience I don’t know as I don’t know anyone who works there, what with me being in Sydney but I hope so - it would be such a disappointment if they didn’t.

As an aside, another site showcased, www.modernista.com is like no other site I have seen and is remarkable in that it utilises all of the social media and information sites out there to showcase its work – it really gives you a sense of things to come. I showed it to a client who felt it was just so far out there, but I think that is because it is a completely different way of thinking about and looking at things - give it time and this kind of site will be the norm. Its an interesting case study for building an online brand by harnessing all that Web2.0 has to offer.