Social Media: Boost your career

Remember the post, Social media: Is it time to quit? – here’s an interesting response:

Hayden Maynard, nytimes.com
Hayden Maynard, nytimes.com
Don’t Quit Social. Put It to Work for Your Career Instead.

As director of digital communications and social media at the career site Monster, I read, “Quit Social Media. Your Career May Depend on It,” with great interest. The author argues that social is harmful for careers. It is too much of a distraction and doesn’t provide a valuable return on investment professionally.

As someone who spends the majority of his work time on social helping people find careers they’ll love, I disagree with his assessment. I believe that you should not quit social — and that doing so will actually damage your career.

Understandably, you might be questioning my motives. “Hey, this guy does social for a living, so clearly he’s got a vested stake in this matter.” Well, you’re right. But let’s start with the point that I’m not the only one who makes a career doing this. Just one platform, Facebook, has created more than 4.5 million social media industry jobs globally, according to a study conducted by Deloitte. Talk about literal career benefits. The number of people in the creative industries, advertising and more who make a living on social is probably much higher…

Read the rest HERE.

Why people quit their jobs

Why Do People Quit Jobs

Imagine that you’re looking at your company-issued smartphone and you notice an e-mail from LinkedIn. “These companies are looking for candidates like you!” You aren’t necessarily searching for jobs, but you’re always open to opportunities, so out of curiosity, you click on the link. A few minutes later your boss appears at your desk. “We’ve noticed that you’re spending more time on LinkedIn lately, so I wanted to talk with you about your career and whether you’re happy here,” she says. Uh-oh.

Why Attrition Matters

It’s an awkward and Big Brother–ish scenario—and it’s not so far-fetched. Attrition has always been expensive for companies. But in many industries the cost of losing good workers is rising, owing to tight labor markets and the increasingly collaborative nature of jobs. (As work becomes more team-focused, seamlessly plugging in new players is more challenging.) Thus companies are intensifying their efforts to predict which workers are at high risk of leaving so that managers can try to stop them. Tactics range from garden-variety electronic surveillance to sophisticated analyses of employees’ social media lives.

Some of this analytical work is generating fresh insights about what impels employees to quit. In general, people leave their jobs because they don’t like their boss. Or see opportunities for promotion or growth Or offered a better gig (and often higher pay). These reasons have held steady for years. New research looks not just at why workers quit but also at when. “We’ve learned that what really affects people is their sense of how they’re doing compared with other people in their peer group. Or with where they thought they would be at a certain point in life,” says Brian Kropp, who heads CEB’s HR practice. “We’ve learned to focus on moments that allow people to make these comparisons.”

Read the rest of the article HERE.