The concept of impression management stood out to me in this week’s readings. Described by sociologist Erving Goffman as “the social rituals involved in self-presentation”, the impressions we make on others are “a product of what is given and what is given off”. Throughout the article, references are also made to the way that teens can pick and choose their identities online, whether for privacy, humor or otherwise. These ideas are relevant for social networking sites like Facebook, but they seem to occupy a different meaning in the context of professional networking sites like LinkedIn.
As I go through recruiting for summer internships, there has been such a heavy emphasis on boosting my resume (and digital resume) to make myself appealing to prospective employers. Rather than taking steps to ensure privacy and avoid misrepresentation like I would on Facebook, I find myself seeking strategies to make myself more accessible to recruiters. This entails my regarding social media as an opportunity for personal branding and marketing, and constructing my identity in a way that appeals to employers- but even then, a good image might not be enough for employers.
For particularly saturated and highly competitive industries like investment banking and management consulting, I’ve been told that they search cover letters, resumes and LinkedIn profiles for a set of “key words” that point them toward applicants with the right skill set. Given that such a “controlled vocabulary” exists, it is discomforting to imagine ourselves as just another dataset or as a small portion of a vast, easily searchable database. It is even more uncomfortable to think that your profile and experiences might not be considered by employers, regardless of your qualifications, if you fail to include key words in your resume and your profile does not show up from their “controlled vocabulary” searches.
Impression management in this context therefore becomes an issue of distinguishing yourself and standing out, rather than preserving a positive image simply by virtue of omitting or concealing questionable information on your profile. We are now concerned with how others process and interpret the information on our profile, but in a way that encourages endless scrutiny of the way we present ourselves on networking sites.
As we ride a wave of increasing ease of integration of multiple social media platforms (you can use Facebook to sign in to almost everything), I am curious to see how our social and professional lives might converge, and if so, whether a consistency in identity across platforms is necessary. Failing which, I am curious to explore how discrepancies can be managed to avoid misrepresentation and misinterpretation. While it is a lot harder to navigate privacy in cyberspace, we are ultimately on the losing end of any such misinterpretation, making it necessary to hold ourselves accountable for our conduct on social media.