Social Media Skills for Professional Online Reputation of Migrant job-Seekers

Developing Social Media
Skills for Professional
Online Reputation of
Migrant Job-Seekers
Ilona Buchem
Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin
Twitter: @mediendidaktik
The creation of these resources has been (partially) funded by the ERASMUS+ grant program of the European Union under grant
no. 2014-1-DE01-KA200-000675. Neither the European Commission nor the project's national funding agency DAAD are
responsible for the content or liable for any losses or damage resulting of the use of these resources.
CC-licence: This work is licensed under a Free Culture Licence Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
4th European Conference on Social Media, ECSM 2017, 3 July 2017

12 800 students, 290 professors
8 departments, 70 BA and MA programs
30% of students have a migration background Ilona Buchem
Professor for Media
and Communication
Ilona Buchem CC BY-SA 4.0

Migration is a fact of life in the globalised world. It plays a critical role
in the economic growth and counteracting labour market shortages in
receiving countries.
The world on the move

https://www.oecd.org/els/mig/Finding-their-Way-Germany.pdf
The flow of migrants and refugees

Studies in Germany show that shortages of skilled workers will broadly affect
economy starting in 2020 due to population ageing and a shrinking labour.
http://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/for-qualified-professionals/working/demanded-professions
Shortages of skilled workers

The economy sectors in Germany affected by the shortages of skilled
workers include healthcare, engineering and technology sectors.
Demand for skill workers

•Unemployment in Germany is twice as high among
people who have migration background compared
to those who do not.
•Many migrants hold professional degrees and
valuable skills and yet have problems finding
adequate employment – the problem of “brain
waste”.
•Migrant academics (including refugees) are often
faced with (a) unemployment (no job), (b)
underemployment (under-utilisation of
qualifications), or (c) precarious work (poorly
paid, insecure and/or unprotected jobs).
Job market - challenges for migrants

There are many difficulties in exploiting the social capital, e. g. degrees,
certificates and professional experience (differences in education systems,
recognition of foreign degrees and qualifications).
Exploiting the social capital

Social media are used by migrants to learn how to search for jobs, where to
find jobs and how to apply for jobs.
The connected migrant

Promoting social media skills of job-seeking migrant academics in the
BeuthBonus qualification program at Beuth University of Applied Sciences.
Case Study “BeuthBonus”

BeuthBonus program was developed to help migrant academics improve
employment situation, especially finding long-term employment
adequate to the individual qualification field and level.
BeuthBonus Qualification Program

The BeuthBonus program (2015 – 2018) is part of the federal program “Integration through Qualification”
funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, and Education, the German Federal Ministry of Labour
and Social Affairs and the German Federal Employment Agency.
BeuthBonus is also a pilot in the Open Badge Network
funded under the ERASMUS+ program of the European Union.
Funding and networks

BeuthBonus participants
PARTICIPANTS MIGRANT GRADUATES WITH TECHNICAL DEGREES
Number of participants
(2015-2016)
n = 28 (12 female, 16 male), 61 applications
Academic background 20 different degrees: 28% BA, 18% MA, 7% PhD
Age 54% 30-39, 21% 40-49, 21% 20-29 years old
Countries of origin (by
frequency)
Tunesia, Afghanistan, Greece, Iran, Syria Russia,
Spain, Italy, Albania, India

Social media skills
Migrant job-seekers need professional social media skills to construct online reputation by
(a) showcasing professional skills, competencies, qualifications and achievements,
(b) connecting with potential employers, and (c) building trust.

Paper-based job application Digital job application
Research study “Recruiting Trends 2014”: https://www.uni-bamberg.de/fileadmin/uni/fakultaeten/wiai_lehrstuehle/isdl/RecruitingTrends_2014.pdf
Digital job application and online recruitment channels
Recent studies in Germany show that social recruiting has been gaining importance
and the attitude of employers and job-seekers has changed to positive.

Key social media used for online recruiting by companies in Germany are
Xing, followed by LinkedIn and Facebook (Weitzel et al., 2016).
22.1%
10.8%
7.4%
Job Advertising
21.1%
18.9%
Employer Branding
14.9%
10.6%
Active Sourcing
n = 188
13.7%

Active sourcing in social media
45%
45% of job-seekers prefer to be approached
by a potential employer.
21% of job-seekers would pay for a better
visibility to be actively sourced.
Source: Weitzel et al. (2016)
40%
40% of job openings are combined with
active sourcing – recruiters approach
directly promising candidates in SM.
(55% in the IT sector)
Source: Weitzel et al. (2016)

Highly-skilled candidates with technical background tend to be frequently approached by
recruiters through Social Media (Kelly Workforce Index, 2013).
Professional social media skills and online reputation
are a career enhancer

This methodology is applied to initiate and support the process of construction of
professional identity in social media.
BeuthBonus: Learning by modelling
1
Control
Ego-Google: What is the picture one gets about
me when googling my name?
2
Reflect
Competency-Profile: What is
special about me? What are my
career aims?
3
Tools
Observe + Act: What do other do in
what social media? What will I do?
4Themes
Framing: What to consider,
e.g. privacy, licences
5
Construct
Select + Plan + Deploy: What
tools and how will I use to
build my reputation?
Source: http://www.perspektive2-0.de/korettalav/

The process of reputation building is assessed at 3 levels: functional, social and
expressive. Culture-specific and gender-specific issues are considered.
1
FUNCTIONAL
Successful in the achievement
of goals? Use appropriate
means to achieve own goals?
3
EXPRESSIVE
Perceived truthfulness,
authenticity and identity of
the reputation holder?
2
SOCIAL
Connecting with others - how and how well? Conform
with social norms and values?
Social Media Skills

In a networked, digital world of today, digital representations of skills based on
verifiable evidence and transparent assessment criteria are necessary for building
trust and reputation.
Open Badges:
Recognising and communicating competencies

Open Badges are an open web
standard which can be used to
capture and communicate skills
In BeuthBonus program Open Badges are used as tools to recognise and represent
skills of migrant academics in a verifiable and evidence-based way.

Open Badges 2.0 standard
with new metadata options:
• Evidence (multiple items)
• Internationalisation/localisation
• Recipient identifiers
New: Criteria & Evidence are machine-
readable components (linked data)
Source: IMS Global Learning Consortium 2017
{
"@context": "https://w3id.org/openbadges/v2",
"type": "BadgeClass",
"id": "https://example.org/robotics-badge.json",
"name": "Awesome Robotics Badge",
"description": …,
"image": "https://example.org/robotics-badge.png",
"criteria": …,
"issuer": …,
"alignment": …
}
“90% of the badge system is not visual”, Klein, J. (2013)
Open Badges Metadata:
criteria, evidence, issuer, earner, alignment

Open Badges Infrastructure:
Issuer - Hub - Displayer

http://www.profilpass-online.de/
ProfilPASS:
biographical competency appraisal and balancing

Open Badge Canvas:
Conceptual design

BeuthBonus Academy

BeuthBonus Badges
https://www.openbadgeacademy.com/beuthbonusbadges

Social Media Skills Badge

skillsmemberships
knowledgedisposition
Open Badges and Online Reputation
“(Open Badges) have the potential for greater, extended use for individuals in multiple learning
environments to create skill and knowledge portraits more comprehensive than a single letter
grade or certificate can capture.” (Sullivan, 2013)

BEFORE AFTER
Employment
7%
(26 / 28 unemployed)
75%
(7 / 28 unemployed)
Digital CV 0% 72%
Online profile 8% 86%
Social network small and narrow larger and broader
Self-esteem
lower: German labour
market and own skills
higher: aware of own
professional identity
BeuthBonus Results
11 out of 28 participants = 75% found employment already during the
program or shortly after (possibly more in a long-term perspective)

83%
(10 out of 12)
Open Badges are useful instruments for
enhancing online reputation in Social
Media and digital job applications
66%
(8 out of 12)
Open Badges recognise my skills in an
appropriate way and are designed in an
appealing way
66%
(8 out of 12)
Open Badges are helpful to make
potential employers pay attention more
to my online profiles
BeuthBadges Results
The results are based on a survey of the BeuthBonus participants.
Here example results of the second cohort with n = 12.

http://beuthbonus.beuth-hochschule.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Badge-Broschuere-IQ-Berlin-2016-12-01_ca-2.pdf

http://www.openbadgenetwork.com/
OPEN BADGE NETWORK / ERASMUS+
Website
Output 1: Framework & Leadership
Output 2: Infrastructure
Output 3: OB for Individuals & Organisations
Output 4: OB in Territories
Output 5: Establishing OB at Policy Levels
Output 6: European Open Badge Network
Output 7: Research, Evaluation and Quality

Prof. Dr. Ilona Buchem
buchem@beuth-hochschule.de
Twitter: @mediendidaktik
beuthbonus.beuth-hochschule.de
http://openbadgenetwork.com
Thank you!

Social Media Skills for Professional Online Reputation of Migrant job-Seekers

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Social Media Skills for Professional Online Reputation of Migrant job-Seekers