Developing Employability Skills with Social Media

From the article Social Media: Employability skills for the 21st Century, reflect on the author's position that "Social Business is a Business Essential". For Task 3 write an 'e-mail formatted' post back to the author about whether you agree or disagree with their position and why. Be sure to reflect on your own experience to make your position more credible. Start your email with a greeting, apply a pattern, and end with a sign-off and signature.

Key infection points at which a student may be required to demonstrate efective external communication skills include:
• When looking to secure an internship
• When seeking full-time employment 

Create LinkedIn profles. Students should develop their LinkedIn profles to authentically refect their brand,including skills and intended message. A complete profle will include a professional photo, headline, relevant experience and education;incorporating industry keywords will increase discoverability through search. Take advantage of attributes like background image, the summary section, interests,volunteer experience and accomplish

Grow and deepen professional,academic and personal networks.Students should connect with their academic peers, personal relations and professional contacts to jumpstart their network. Encourage students to make online network growth a common practice when meeting relevant people. Become original content creators.Students should share content they create as part of CTE — capstone projects,imagery of in-process and complete CTE work, papers — to develop an audience.

Develop audience, authority, reputation and infuence. When a student delivers content in their own voice, a brand and reputation begin to emerge.Once created, content can be published and repurposed. Remember, Generation Z students are digital natives; leverage their smartphones to create video content and more.

Make social business part of practice.Focus on one core use case: securing internships and employment. Social media is simply an additional way to communicate. Ensure students stay true to who they are, listen to their network's feedback, and fnd their personal voice and style. Convert online communications to ofine behavior. Ensure that students are employing social business skills to set up calls, interviews and in-person meetings.