Page 359 - Using MIS

Social media brings new risks to employers, too. It’s 1. Pay attention to the content of your LinkedIn profile.
now possible for the competition to identify and hire away Your profile will be searched by many people besides
your key employees. Your competitors can intentionally your immediate connections. If you want to get paid
target specific employees within your organization. Those like a professional, then look and act like a professional.
employees may be critical to your success, and they likely LinkedIn is your resume.
possess detailed knowledge of the strengths and weak- 2. Manage your privacy settings for sites like Facebook and
nesses of your internal systems, your future strategic plans, Twitter. Use those settings to control who sees what.
and how to access other key workers. When in doubt, leave it out. It may seem fun now, but
Some might argue that line employees aren’t that im- things have a way of being shared and found later.
portant to a company’s competitive advantage. They’d 3. Assume everything you post on social media sites could
argue it’s the CEO that really matters. That’s why the CEO be seen by a future employer. Remove questionable con-
is paid so much. Who cares if a competitor hires away a tent and protect your future earning potential.
few employees? Well, Steve Jobs was a business genius, but 4. Be proactive in protecting your online social reputation.
even he needed teams of people—people who were key to Don’t use foul language, post lewd pictures, or criticize
his plans—in order to succeed. colleagues or former employers. Apply the Intel social
As an employee, understand that social media, specifi- media guidelines (Figure 8-12) to your own social sites.
cally your LinkedIn profile, is your key to getting and keeping 5. If you’re in doubt about the content of your site, ask
a job. As an employer, understand that social media repre- someone 20 years older than you to take a look. If you’re
sents a tremendous recruiting opportunity and a potential embarrassed to do that, something is wrong.
threat to your competitive strategy. Recruiting is now easier 6. As an employer, remember to treat your key employees
and cheaper for you, your employees, and your competitors. as such. They have unprecedented access to other jobs
So what guidelines can you take from these few that may pay more. They may also be getting job offers
paragraphs? from your competitors.

DisCussion Questions

1. Grade yourself on the guidelines above. Be frank and b. Describe elements in your social data that could indi-
honest. List changes you need to make to your social cate problematic issues.
behavior. 4. Ask someone else to evaluate your social data in light of
2. Think of two organizations for which you would like to both sets of criteria in question 2. You can ask a friend, but
work. Assume both organizations review job candidates’ you will likely obtain better information if you pick someone
SM data as part of their initial screening process. whom you do not know well. Most human resource screen-
a. Name and describe three positive criteria that both ing personnel are in their 30s or 40s. Try to pick someone in
companies could use to evaluate applicants. If you that age group to evaluate your criteria, if you can.
think the companies might use different criteria, ex- 5. Choose the most negative social data according to your
plain the difference. answers to questions 3 and 4. Suppose you are in a job
b. Name and describe three indications of problematic interview and you are asked about that problematic
issues that both companies could use to evaluate data. How will you respond?
candidates. If you think the companies might use dif- 6. Who do you think is the most key person at Apple (CEO,
ferent criteria, explain the difference. Sr. VP of Design, Sr. VP of Engineering, or Sr. VP of
c. If you were rejected because of a lack of social data Marketing)? What would happen if that person left? Would
supporting your criteria for item a or because of your opinion of that person change if he or she went to a
the presence of social data in the criteria for item b, competitor and took key people away from Apple? How
would you know it? would that affect employees at Apple?
3. Evaluate your own social data in light of your answer to 7. An adage in the software development business is that
question 2. if you have an indispensable employee, you should fire
a. Describe elements in your social data that support him or her. Explain what this means. How can you pre-
positive criteria. vent having indispensable employees?
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