April, 2010

Performance — No Comments
26
Apr 10

Using Facebook Community Pages to Prep for Interviews

One new feature Facebook introduced last week was Community Pages.   The Community Pages appear to be like Wikipedia pages for Facebook Business Pages; they pull what other Facebook users are saying about a topic or business and display the information on one page.

Law students and lawyers may want to consider Facebook Community Pages as another tool to help prepare for interviews, especially if they are interviewing with larger firms.  For example, I entered the name of a large firm in my Facebook search bar and the first result was a link to the firm’s Community Page.

FB Community page DLA

As you can see, the Community Page pulled updates where other Facebook users mentioned the firm’s name.  From reading this, a job seeker would learn that the firm recently hosted a Women in eDiscovery Seminar in its LA office, lost a partner to another firm and added an attorney to the firm’s Corporate Finance Practice in NYC.

While the Community Pages are not the only tool job seekers should use to prep for interviews, it appears they offer potential to provide updates about law firms that could help job seekers prepare for interviews.  It will be interesting to see how Facebook develops the Community Pages.

Privacy — No Comments
21
Apr 10

New Privacy Menu on Facebook

Facebook launched a new privacy menu on April 19, 2010.

FB privacy settings menu april 21

You can read more about the changes here.  I discovered the new menu while revising the privacy chapter for my book.  I noticed the Profile Information section was missing from the new menu; the information previously contained in Profile Information is now divided into two categories:  (1) Personal Information & Posts; and (2) Friends, Tags and Connections.

One effect of this change is that your two settings for pictures (Photo Albums and Tagged Photos) are now in different sections.

  1. Photo Albums – Personal Information & Posts. To edit the privacy level for your photo albums, go to Personal Information & Posts.
  2. Tagged Photos – Friends, Tags and Connections. To edit the privacy level for your tagged photos, go to Friends, Tags and Connections.

Previously, both photo albums and tagged photos were under the Profile Information section.

I created the following table to show you what information is contained in each section on the new privacy menu.  I’ve also included the default privacy level settings.  The good news is that it doesn’t appear the default privacy settings changed (I created a new Facebook account to test the privacy levels).

Information

Default Privacy Level
PERSONAL INFORMATION & POSTS
Bio Everyone
Birthday Friends of Friends
Interested In and Looking For Everyone
Religious and Political Views Friends of Friends
Photo Albums Everyone is initial default; can change default as well as setting on each album
Posts by Me Everyone
Posts by Friends Friends of Friends
Comments on Posts Only Friends
Allow Friends to Post on my Wall Friends can post on my wall
CONTACT INFORMATION
IM Screen Name Only Friends
Mobile Phone Only Friends
Other Phone Only Friends
Current Address Only Friends
Website Everyone
Add Me as a Friend Everyone
Send me a message Everyone
Email Only Friends
FRIENDS, TAGS and CONNECTIONS
Friends Everyone
Family Everyone
Relationships Everyone
Photos and Videos of Me Friends of Friends
Current City Everyone
Hometown Friends of Friends
Education and Work Everyone
Activities Everyone
Interests Everyone
Things I Like Everyone
SEARCH
Facebook Search Results Everyone
Public Search Results Allow public search profile to be indexed on search engines

Note: the table only includes the sections in the new privacy menu where you can adjust the privacy level; thus, it does not include  (1) Applications and Websites; and (2) Block Lists.

Finally, the privacy chapter in my book discusses certain categories of information in the table above in greater detail, including specific implications (both positive and negative) for job seekers and recommended privacy levels.

Practice — No Comments
12
Apr 10

Time Blocking Your Social Job Search

Many lawyers and law students mistakenly believe that using social networking in your job search consumes too much time.  While it is certainly easy to get distracted and waste time, it’s just as easy to control your time on social networking sites.

In my books, I recommend time blocking as one solution.  I first learned about time blocking when I started recruiting – it’s a very common practice in the recruiting field.  Time blocking is just assigning tasks for certain blocks of time; during that block, you do nothing but the assigned task.  For example:

8:00 – 9:00 a.m. Read, return emails
9:00 – 10:00 a.m. 15 recruiting calls for Position A
10:00 -11:00 a.m. Market Candidate B to 8 firms

For a lawyer or law student using the Big 3 social networking sites in their job search, the time blocks for any given day might look like this:

8:00-8:15 a.m. Facebook – search 10 law firm business pages for job leads; check to see if firm you are interviewing with on Friday has FB page
8:15-8:30 a.m. LinkedIn –  prep for interview by searching names of 8 attorneys you are meeting on Friday
8:30-8:35 a.m. Twitter – search firm’s name on Twitter; save search and check for results again at 6:00 p.m.
6:00-6:05 p.m. Twitter – check saved search for firm where you are interviewing to see if there are any new tweets about the firm

During the time blocks above, the job seeker must refrain from all other activities such as answering the phone, responding to emails, or checking the Big 3 sites for personal purposes (do that after you check for professional purposes).  Consider setting a timer (most cell phones have timers) so that you know when to stop; forcing yourself to stop will also help you become more efficient over time.