So what is Company Follow?

Ryan Roslansky, explains on the LinkedIn Blog it “…helps you be among the first to learn about developments at companies… find job openings… or stumble upon business development opportunities… The new feature lets you tap into key goings-on at nearly a million companies that already have their company profiles on LinkedIn and more that are being created every day.” and it’s simple to use. To see how easy it is to use click here for LinkedIn’s explanation (they do it so well).

Company Follow has several advantages for the Jobseeker who can be notified when employees join, are promoted or leave a company and when the company is advertising a job opportunity, though only when advertised on LinkedIn itself. They can have notifications delivered by email, which is the smartest, and can choose the frequency, e.g daily when actively looking for a new role.

So what can a Jobseeker do with this information? They can:

• Be selective of the companies they follow, choosing those that they most want to work for, have the best reputation in the industry and where their skills would be of the greatest asset to the potential employer.
• Follow all of their selected company’s news listening for what they’re not saying and trends that are emerging where hidden jobs may be found
• See who is leaving. Is their role being advertised? Were they recommended by their manager? Who do they know who knows the departing employee or their manager?
• See who has been promoted. A great opportunity to make contact with a message of congratulations and to follow up some time later to see how they’re getting on i.e. a way to ease into a potentially door-opening relationship.
• See what Executives or Senior Managers have joined. Is the company taking a new direction? Have they won a project? Will they need you in their team?

Company Follow is great for companies who want to attract talent and keep tabs on their competitors so if you’ve not even created your company profile, get cracking! If you already have one you may want to give it a once over and ensure that it will attract followers.

So what can a Company do with this information? They can:

• Build their followers and have a potential talent pool ready to be tapped in to and because, unlike groups, there is not a restriction on the number of companies a person can follow, potentially have followers who may not have been able to join their group.
• Be aware what their competitors are doing. Your competitors can follow you and this gives a company a great opportunity to know who is listening and, you never know, you may just decide to poach them yourself!
• Be aware of what is being said. The content on LinkedIn is user-generated and this may concern you but as these conversations are already taking place, it’s better to know than pretend they’re not.
• Follow their competitors and therefore proactively manage your current employees. You’ll know if your competitor is looking for someone who they could find in your team and therefore you have the opportunity to keep your staff happy and content.
• Follow without being blocked and currently, this is a great advantage over, say, Twitter. So go follow your competitors, to protect your talent pool and to find your new employees.

I wonder what LinkedIn will come up with next….

If asked anything, whether about a band, shop, company, name or place, what is the first thing you do? Google it. Even your grandma Googles it now. It officially became a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary 4 years ago. It is undeniable that information a Google search brings back can dramatically affect your opinion.

But have you thought about what happens when someone googles you? Most people probably haven’t tried (do it now, see what happens, I’ll wait!). Chances are about 6 people you share your name with pop out of their respective social networking profiles, probably one or two of the results is yours. 123people.co.uk may well be there too, this is a site designed for searching out people and will bring together any profile you have on Facebook, MySpace, etc as well as any mentions of your name in the news (even if it not actually you), indeed that scathing review you left on Amazon 3 years ago, and the wish list you made when you where 15… OK so that’s me but none the less, many people don’t think too much about the reputation trail there leaving online. This rings especially true when I tell you that recent research shows that 79% of surveyed hiring managers and job recruiters review online information about job applicants AND 70% had rejected candidates based on what they had found.

So is privacy dead? Not quite but, whether you’re a Facebook addict, Tweetaholic or both there are a few things you need to keep in mind whilst updating your status or tagging those photos from last night.

Whilst being everywhere on the internet maximizes your chances of being seen (which could help you get a job), you need to think about your Personal Brand, in 2010 your CV is much more than a piece of paper!

A few hints and tips…

Keep it simple – Do you really need to be everywhere on the net, having profiles on just one or two social networking sites will make it far easier to keep track of your image.

In the with the new, out with the old – Still got that MySpace profile that you haven’t used in years? Delete it, You never can be sure what will crop up on somebody’s search for you.

Check your settings – Most social network’s default settings are designed to make you as open as possible, think about what parts of your profile you want to be seen and by who.

Know who’s following you – You need to think about who you’re allowing into your network, how well do you really know that guy you met at the bus stop last week? Are you willing to have your colleagues or boss seeing what you got up to at the weekend? Either let them in and change your activity accordingly or decide to keep them out.

Be consistent – If you’re trying to build a ‘Personal Brand’ it needs to be consistent, changing your picture and what your tweeting about daily will reduce the chances of you being recognized and make you appear scatty and unsure of yourself.

You’re going to have a profile online whether you’ve made it yourself or not, so make sure your in control of it, get it to work for you rather than against you.