‘You Are Your Brand:’ Using Social Media to Find a Job

July 6th, 2011 at 07:55am Under Economy Report

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Today we share some ideas for job hunters about presenting yourself online.

Ben Kirshner is chief executive of a New York company he started in two thousand four. Elite SEM, or search engine marketing, has about twenty-five employees. Many companies use headhunters — recruiting services that find workers for high-paying positions. But Mr. Kirshner says that can be costly.

BEN KIRSHNER: “Probably, for a one-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar-a-year employee it would cost me in the range of ten to fifteen thousand dollars.”

He saves money by advertising jobs online and using social media. Sometimes finding the right person this way can take time. But recently Mr. Kirshner posted a job on the advertising site Craigslist. He says he had one hundred fifty good candidates within four hours.

He says his company does not use sites that offer to search the Web for information about job candidates. His company does that itself. Social networks and other websites can provide a lot of details about people’s lives. As Ben Kirshner points out, that may even include personal information that employment laws prevent employers from asking.

BEN KIRSHNER: “Things we are not legally allowed to ask in an interview, we can find because they’re publicly displaying it on the social networks.”

Leslie Stevenson directs the Career Development Center at the University of Richmond in Virginia. For young job-seekers, she says, the barrier between public and private is changing.

LESLIE STEVENSON: “In the past two years, candidates are not seeing social media as a place that we have to keep private from prospective employers but as a tool that will assist in my search.”

To do that, job-seekers need to carefully develop their online image. Ben Kirshner says an important part of that is managing public and private details on social media.

BEN KIRSHNER: “You are your brand. So everything you do online reflects who you are personally and professionally.”

He thinks a willingness to share experiences and skills will lead to a more open workplace.

BEN KIRSHNER: “I think there will be sites and services coming out that will make people even more transparent about what they do at their job.”

Even the kinds of links you share with other people on Facebook or other sites are part of your image.

Image is one thing. But you also need skills. And career specialist Leslie Stevenson says that includes “soft skills.”

LESLIE STEVENSON: “Soft skills are the skills that help people communicate in the workplace. They’re all of the things you bring to the table, such as your communication, how you interact both with your teammates, with potential clients.”

And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report. You can find last week’s report about finding a job online at voaspecialenglish.com. We’re also on Facebook at VOA Learning English. I’m Mario Ritter.

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Bernanke Meets the Press in a First for US Central Bank

June 24th, 2011 at 07:16am Under Economy Report

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Central bankers have to choose their words carefully. So they often say little in public — or little that makes sense. But the United States central bank says it is trying to be more clear and timely in communicating its policies.

The latest example: a press conference by Chairman Ben Bernanke. Wednesday’s event was the first of its kind in the ninety-eight-year history of the Federal Reserve.

In his opening comments. Mr. Bernanke explained a decision by the Federal Open Market Committee to leave its main short-term interest rate near zero. The committee had just completed a two-day meeting.

BEN BERNANKE: “The committee continues to anticipate that the economic conditions — including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends and stable inflation expectations — are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period.”

In other words, the economy is not growing fast enough to worry about inflation. A reporter asked what an “extended period” means to the Fed. Mr. Bernanke said it suggests “a couple of meetings probably” but it all depends on the economy.

The chairman said it is very hard to blame the American public for being impatient with the speed of the recovery. But he pointed out that unemployment is still high — 8.8 percent in March. Oil and gasoline prices are high. And the housing market remains very weak.

The committee said it will complete purchases of six hundred billion dollars in Treasury securities in June. The Fed launched the bond buying program late last year in an effort to keep interest rates low and strengthen the economy.

Some economists say this second round of what is known as quantitative easing, or “QE2,” has not been effective. Mr. Bernanke disagreed and pointed to examples like gains in stock prices.

The Fed has two main goals for its monetary policy: the highest possible employment rates and stable prices. The bank faced criticism for intervening either too little to some critics or too much to others in the financial crisis.

The press conference produced no surprises. Yet, as recently as the middle of the nineteen nineties, the Fed did not even release its decisions or its interest rate targets to the public.

Today the Fed is trying to reach out to Americans through ways like this video on its website.

BEN BERNANKE: “Hi, I’m Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve System. The Fed, as it’s often called, is the central bank of the United States … ”

The Fed announced in March that Mr. Bernanke will hold four press briefings a year. The next of three planned for this year will follow a decision on interest rates in June.

And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report. I’m Mario Ritter.

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