Social media and career development
Branwen Hide
March 23rd, 2010
University of Southampton School of Humanities Postgraduate Researcher Career Events
Outline What do we mean by social media Social media as information source Using social media to build a personal ‘brand’ Creating an online research profile General Issues
Who uses or have used the following Google Facebook RSS reader
E.g googlereader, bloglines LinkedIn Writes their own blog Responds to others blogs Twitter Social bookmarking sites
E.g citeUlike, zetero or Mendeley Academia.edu Other social networking sites
E.g Researchgate, H-net, Graduate Junction,
What do we mean by social media Sites that are based on user participation and
user generated content Such as twitter, citeUlike, de.li.cious, blogs
Encourage large scale discussions among users with similar interests
Enable access and dissemination of information to a wide audience
Types of social networking sites of particular relevance to researchers• Microblogging sites
• Like a traditional blog but the content is much shorter • Friend feed, twitter
• Social networking sites• E.g. Facebook - but there are a large number of specialist sites that may be
more appropriate• Bookmarking sites
• These allow you to bookmark either websites or web content and share them with your network
• Del.i.cious, connetae• Referencing sites
• Similar to Endnote, but free and you have an online component• Some allow you to also store the PDF document• Share content with your network
• Aggregators • Pull content together from a number of different sources
• RSS feed readers
Traditional job search
Use job boards to find opportunities
Read the job vacancy pages of relevant literature
Monitor a number of job sites Email lists
Cold send out of resumes Passive networking
Web 2.0 job search Career news and vacancies
come to you RSS feeds, Twitter etc.
Specialist search engines and subject sites
Use meta sites – these collate information from a variety of sites
Develop a personal ‘brand’ Create a virtual resume/profile be ‘discovered’ Expanded active network
Using social media to find a job AHRC Funding Opportunities
Available via Twitter and RSS feed ESRC Funding Opportunities
Available via RSS H-Net
Designated job opportunities section of the website ResearchGate
Career Opportunities in Research, Science & Higher Education. European Commission
Share funding opportunities and store via social bookmarking sites
Jobs.ac.uk Available via RSS feed
Creating an online presence Self-marketing
Web presence
Why go online Meet others with similar interests Keep up-to-date with information from your
field Expand your horizon Market yourself Develop and showcase specific skills Find out about:
upcoming conferences/seminars Funding, job and intern opportunities
Research life cycle
Research Production
Publication
Development of a research idea
Post-publication and distribution
Pre-publication dissemination
Literature reviews, online data bases, online archival material, online discussions
Text mining, virtual lab equipment, online-analysis, reuse of existing data
Blogs, wikis, networking sites, on-line forums
E-journals, e-books, open access publications, subject specific repositories
Blogs, wikis, online-forums, networking sites, slideshare, Flicker, YouTube, institutional repositories, reference sharing sites, subject specific repositories, Society web pages
Times Archives Online, UKPMC, UKDAEMBL,H-net.org, Economists online
myExperiment, Ensembl
MyExperiment, arXiv, FriendfeedResearchgate, H-net.org
Mendeley, citeUlike, Connotea, Twitter, Omeka, ScholarPress
PLoS, open humanities press, EBI, PDB, UKDA, UKPMC
Creating an online profile Think of it as an online CV Develop your own website, utilize existing social
networking sites, create a profile on your institute’s research pages etc.
Make sure you include up-to-date contact details including email address
short statement of current work and why it is relevant Collaborations Publications or publication plans Conferences/papers/talks you have presented or will be
presenting at include details of the event
Teaching commitments and resources (if you have them) Society memberships List groups or committees you are involved with
e.g post graduate representative on committee X at your university Other related interests and experiences
Particularly if changing fields or leaving academia Future research plans or career plans
And why Let people know it exists
Include the address in your email signature Include URL on other social media sites
Populate multiple platforms This will allow as many people as possible to see you
Things to bear in mind Know where your audience is
Ask colleagues where they are Spend some time searching Develop existing links Use multiple platforms
Professional vs personal image Want this to be a true reflection of who you are
Do not post anything you would not want a potential employer to see
Use privacy settings Its important you interact in the environment as much as
you feel comfortable Building and maintaining a network takes time and energy Make use of tagging and keywords
You want people to be able to find you
Social media sites Zotero citeUlike Conneta Mendeley Del.icio.us Diggo Digg Reddit Newsvine Omeka ScholarPress open humanities press Institutional repositories
FacebookAcademia.eduLinkedInNature NetworksResearchgateH-netEconomists onlineArts-humanities.netGraduate JunctionMethodspaceBiomed Experts Scispace.net
Institutional research pages
Personal websites Research wikis Flickr YouTube ScienceStage Bloglines Google reader Twitter Friendfeed Ning
References Digital researchers - presentations, blogs and discussion
http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/219961/Digital-researcher-blog.html
Wired For Work, Elizabeth Wilkinson and Alex Hardman http://manchesterpgcareers.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/slides-pathways/
Social Media – Creating an Online Research Profile, Emily Bannister http://pgrdocblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/social-media-creating-an-online-research-profile/
Adventures in career development, Tristram Hooley http://adventuresincareerdevelopment.posterous.com/
Branwen HideLiaison and Partnership OfficerResearch Information Network
[email protected], http://rin.academia.edu/BranwenHide
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www.rin.ac.uk