New Delhi  : Global workforce solutions leader, Kelly Services, today released whitepapers on ‘Build you digital portfolio’ and ‘Clean up you digital dirt’. Keeping the digital explosion in mind, social media is increasingly becoming an integral part of the employment landscape. The papers indicate that one doesn’t have to be tech genius to land a job one really wants. It highlights few basic steps to build an online portfolio that will promote your employability and make you stand out of the crowd.

Be proactive and accessible: Build a “catch-all” site that hosts everything from your social networks, your resume, samples of your work, references, and your blogs, as well as any links you want to share in one place

Understand what your personal brand is, and what it is not: Build, manage and promote yourself and be active in the right ways—and in the right places, both on and offline

Build trust: Online content to be interactive and collaborative

Mr. Kamal Karanth, Managing Director, Kelly Services said “Enough has been said about how Social Media helps or deters hiring decisions. Now from being merely present in Social Media incumbents should have an eye for the quality of their online presence to attract appropriate employment opportunities”.

The time to begin building your digital portfolio is ‘right now’. It is therefore, vital to engage in online conversations that demonstrate your ambitions. Apart from building a digital portfolio for perspective employees, it is crucial to have content which is relevant to the HR managers. Below are the reasons ‘why’:

Globally, 79% of hiring managers found content online that convinced them not to hire

More than one-quarter of people (26%) are worried that material from their social networking pages could adversely impact their career

Young employees are the most concerned about potential career fallout of their social media activity, therefore it is vital to clean the so called ‘Digital Closet’

Globally it has been observed that 86% of HR managers wanted potential employees to have employer friendly social media profiles

A good social media profile reflects candidates profile in a better manner

Go back through all your online accounts and look for information, posts or pictures that might indicate:

unhealthy or risky aspects of your private life

controversial or strong opinions that conflict with your employers’ interests

private or inappropriate details about you

Seek to highlight those points that matter to a you and only remove or hide from public view any material that shows you in an unprofessional light

Mr. Karanth further added, “One should be aware that building a digital portfolio is about demonstrating your ‘brand’ through online activity. It shows employers what you’re passionate about and driven by; how you communicate and connect with others, leadership or innovation in your field. So, expand your social media presence beyond just showing up to start building an online portfolio that employers can use to connect with you. It’s easier now to build your image about how your employers should perceive you even before you have met them”.

Posting and contributing to social media is clearly a big part of this, but so too is monitoring how one appears on other people’s pages, and being selective about whom one connects with. Being proactive about online activity, as well as educating others about the repercussions of what they post about other is becoming a bigger issue for us all. With technology advancements, one can monitor one’s web presence through sites like pubsub.com or Google Alerts.