Sites Help You Manage Your Social Networking Imprint
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Didn't get the job you really wanted and worked hard to get? You might be able to blame it on your social network score.
Sites like Klout and new start-ups Reppify and Identified will check your social network posts and how you use sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Then they assign you a score based on your influence and social network personality.
IT Headhunter, Paul DeBettignies says you should pay attention. And it can be tricky sometimes.
"Sixty to 80 percent of recruiter HR folks in the corporate side will check you out online. They're looking to see how influential are you on social media," he said. "You can game the system pretty good. Just because you have a lot of followers, it doesn't mean anything. It's what you're doing with those followers."
The sites give people and companies scores for how active they are on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but it doesn't just measure how many friends or followers you have. It looks at the number or "retweets" and "likes" to see how people interact with you.
"This sort of gives you a measure in how present you are in other people's minds," says Carlson School of Management professor Ravi Bapna, who thinks these sites are useful for employers.
"It's not based on what this person is telling you in an interview, it's based how this person is actually behaving in the real world," says Bapna.
WCCO reporter Jamie Yuccas' Klout score was rated at 41, which classifies her online personality as a "networker." She also found a kink when she signed up. Klout listed her as being influential in 11 separate topics, some of which puzzled her -- the NHL, hockey and Colorado, for instance.
One could presume an employer in sports may look at her resume, even though she would likely be better suited for media related jobs.
"It's kind of like Google and their search algorithm. Klout is doing the same thing for the amount of key words that are in your tweets and Facebook updates that you're doing," said DeBettignies.
The interesting part is that you have a Klout score whether you're signed up for the site or not, but if you sign up, you can manage it.
Bapna says if you're planning to look for a new job, you should sign up for one of these sites a month or so before submitting resumes and work on improving your score.
He also says you may start seeing this used by businesses wanting to target and take care of their better customers.
