Career Progression and Social Networks - Assignment Example

Discuss the ways in which participation in the various forms of online social networking may impact on career progression Career progression refers to the progression through a sequence of jobs. This involves advancing in a job and adding diversifying activities to job which results in improved skills, higher income and greater prestige. In older times, career progression and development was seen as the responsibility of the employer and firms had career development programs to mark the employee’s advancement but now this agenda of development has been taken by external agents, most commonly the social networking sites. These social networking sites have led to tremendous progression in careers however some career progressions have also dampened over time. Since the last five years or so, online social networking has achieved immense momentum. Sites like Facebook, Myspace, Hyves, Twitter and others have earned a large share of the world’s business by providing social networking. All social network sites have a number of typical features like each of them gives the user a homepage which links all the material that is available to them. A typical networking site contains a personal profile for the users to post their pictures and provide personal and professional details (Knoke, 2007). They also list their current activities and the users can also message each other. The users can add their friends and family to their network. They can select who they want on their network and can restrict others from viewing their activities. The scope of these online networking sites today is not only limited to providing a mode for staying in touch with friends and family from the remotest areas in the world. It provides with instant communication but it is now being used as a means of business too. While on one side it is observed that career progression has been dampened by people wasting time setting up statuses and commenting on fan pages it has also been improved by business minded people who use this not only for fun but for meeting executives and deciding on global business ventures. Even President Obama used Twitter during the 2008 election campaign (Scott, 2000). These social networking sites enable people to stay in touch. They facilitate work and studying groups. Even many universities have used these social networking ideas in their virtual learning sites by developing online student forums. These social networking sites have impacted career progression positively in many ways. The employers don’t have to search much, instead all they need to do is go to the best university’s fan page and find out students that may bring brighter prospects to their firms. They can hire them after seeing their professional profiles. Many students have their resumes and ideal job environment on their profiles making the job of the recruitment department easier. Now the recruitment department does not need to sort out heaps and heaps of applications, rather they can hand pick the best employees from such networking sites. The employers would even get to know if the prospective employee is pleasant to talk to or not similarly the employees can find out about their boss’ temperament which is extremely important. This way the job of the recruitment department of a firm is made easy using these social networking sites. Besides helping in recruitment programs, these social networking sites have been a source of branding and advertising too. For example, the right hand side on one’s profile on Facebook is filled with advertisements. These advertisements enable the users of the social networking sites to become aware of new products and deals in the market without having to step out of their houses or workplaces. In the domain of branding, these social networking sites can be used to pass on accepted wisdom. Not only do social networking sites possess the capacity to pass on the word of mouth information about brands, products and companies but also they have featured special advertisements so that the users are bound to look at them and buy. There are also interest groups and fan pages on such networking sites that allow brand loyalties to develop (Cross, Robert). The regular customers or even prospective customers join such groups and get to know about recent deals and developments. The customers get to know of any sales or discounts being offered and also the current prices. That surely enables the customers to know when to reach out for their products and it gives a very solid opportunity to the branding and marketing team to progress using these networking sites. Thus as we have seen, the careers of the branding and marketing executives as well as of budding employees have gained progression due to these social networking sites. For the concerned people, their jobs have become easier since the social networking sites do half their job. They don’t have to advertize their products on banners neither do they have to distribute pamphlets from door to door, everyone logs in Twitter, myspace or Facebook and so they can put their advertisements online (Gillin, 2009). This will guarantee that the world gets to know about their product and cuts down a lot of costs. While on one hand the social networking sites have made firms and employees more approachable and products more widely available, on the other hand they have dampened career progression in more than one way. For example, there are a lot of fresh graduates from respectable colleges and universities, mostly girls, who graduate and then take a year off for the sake of relaxation. It has been stated on CNN news that one out of every four graduates amongst girls and one out of every seven graduates amongst boys takes a year off after graduation due to extreme exhaustion. These social networking sites providing them the sole source of entertainment and later they’re set for marriages wasting their academics forever. These social networking sites also waste a lot of time. Facebook quite recently introduced the farming application and most users on Facebook were seen playing farming for hours and hours on end. While these sites provide entertainment, excess of them leads to wasting a lot of time and hence devoting lesser time to work. In the US, a survey was conducted whose results indicate that one of every five employees that were fired last year was due to excessive social networking during office hours (Holtz, Shez). Many used proxy sites when the original sites were banned as per company policies. This shows that employees can go to all extents to seek fun on these networking sites. Also, the social networking sites have exacerbated the state of careers that are based on one on one interaction such as those of therapists and psychologists. Earlier, people used to book appointments to meet their psychologists and discuss their mental and physical well being with them. But now, most people login to their favorite social networking site and find out some random person who looks interesting and is willing to talk. They then speak their hearts out to such random people and feel relieved. The careers of psychologists and therapists have therefore been adversely affected by social networking sites (Weil, 2006). Furthermore, the careers of branding experts have also suffered. Earlier it was discussed how branding has been made easier using social networking sites hence helping the branding team. However, just like all fingers are not the same size, not all people in a team are alike. Some employees work to earn a living only, they do not care much about progressing or achieving more in life. For such employees, networking sites make their work a lot easier. However, there are also employees who have an urge to lead and not just work for a living. Such employees want to progress over time, however progressions and promotions have been dampened by social networking sites as it has become very difficult for the employers to find out which of the employees is more talented than the other. A lot of skills sadly go waste because of this emerging trend . Furthermore, the idea of maintaining and updating fan pages for products seems to be a good idea for emerging businesses but those who have established networks and names do not waste time on these networking sites. These web pages sometimes provide incorrect information or most likely partial information. For example, in some cases, prices of a product change over time. This may be due to an overall price surge, or if input prices increase or even if the quality is improved. The fan pages if not updated frequently will enrage the customers who purchase relying totally on those fan pages (Teten, 2005). This dampens the career progression of everyone associated with the firm since the firm loses its clientele. Lastly, and most importantly the careers of salesmen have adversely been affected by these social networking sites. A couple of years ago, there used to be door to door service of sales men showing off the latest products. Not only that, markets used to be flooded with people, many who just came for the sake of window shopping. Through these online networking sites people get all the information by word of mouth information or fan pages, therefore most people are very likely to buy the good online too thereby eradicating the need of sales men completely (Locke, 2001). For example, Dexpel is the first online shop in Pakistan that provides laptop skins and DVD skins etc. This has given rise to a new trend. Now people prefer to market their goods online and discuss them on the social networking sites and finally make the transactions online too. Thus the careers of sales persons have been adversely affected. It can therefore be concluded that social networking sites are today much more than a forum to meet old friends and make new ones. Besides lasting relationships, people are using these social networking sites in the business world today and are making huge sums of money out of it (Scoble, 2006). While most people gain by this, some lose. It is therefore a firm’s responsibility to carefully study the cost benefit analysis of using these social networking sites for their product’s promotion before they actually jump into it. While it proves beneficial for some careers, it will soon make others useless or redundant (Israel, Shel). It is time that the world accepts the social networking sites as a new trend or completely abandons if it is harming too many professions. References Cross, R and Parker, A (2004). The hidden power of Social Networks. Harvard Business Press. Gillin, P and Moore, G (2009). The new influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the new social media. Linden Publishing. Holtz, S and Demopolous, T (2006). Blogging for Business. Kaplan Business. Israel, S (2009). Twitterville: How Businesses can thrive in New Global Neighborhoods. Portfolio Hardcover. Knoke, D and Yang, S (2007). Social Network Analysis. Sage Publications. Locke, C and Levine, R (2001). The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual. Basic Books. Scoble, R and Israel, S (2006). Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the way Business Talk with Customers. Wiley. Scott, John (2000).Social Network Analysis: A Handbook. Sage Publications. Teten, D and Allen, S (2005). The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online. AMACOM. Weil, D (2006). The Corporate Blogging. Portfolio Hardcover. Read More