Assignment: Social Networking: Advantages and Disadvantages
Assignment: Social Networking: Advantages and Disadvantages

Social networking plays a fundamental role in the lives of career professionals and job hunters. Gathering information about job opportunities sees job seekers employing the usage of job sites, networking, and employment opportunities. However, it is social networking that has been preferred by job seekers owing to its popularity and good reviews from different quarters. Career professionals have also preferred leveraging social networking to climb the professional ladder. The present paper will thus examine the advantages and disadvantages of adopting social networking by analyzing specific social networking media.

Advantages of Social Networking

According to the social network theory, the fact that the actors are embedded in an interconnected association that provides them with opportunities forms part of the central premise of the concept (Hoye, van Hooft, & Lievens, 2009). Social networking also allows people to build relationships that allow them to not only enjoy job opportunities, but also get to use the influence and knowledge of their mentors to solve particular issues.

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Social media networking has particularly become preferred by career professionals and job seekers due to its multiplicity of advantages. Facebook allows users to establish a profile premised on their work histories, interests, hobbies and pertinent information

Assignment Social Networking Advantages and Disadvantages
Assignment Social Networking Advantages and Disadvantages

that can enable one to get jobs or share commonalities with potential mentors (Kelly, 2010). Also, Facebook enables users to join professional groups, download job applications, and write articles related to their careers to boost their standing. Further, career professionals and job seekers can utilize LinkedIn’s unique allowance to create a profile that resembles a resume to land new jobs (Kelly, 2010). The fact that it allows users to establish professionally-oriented networks facilitates the above. As a business and career biased social media platform, LinkedIn allows its users to engage in activities related to their careers such as writing and sharing articles as well as uploading documents.

Therefore, the above social medial platforms collectively help a job seeker or a career professional to enjoy a host of advantages. Platforms such as LinkedIn helps individuals to establish a reliable business network due to its tighter controls. Moreover, a career individual can use social media platforms to solve practical challenges through their search functions. Irrespective of the platform that one utilizes, social media offers people a platform to share information that casts them in a positive light, which may help them to get jobs through recommendations (Escoffery, Kenzig, Hyden, & Hernandez, 2018). In addition to sharing information, social medial platforms such as Twitter also gives users a leeway to connecting one to their communities, which is an important part of professional development.

Disadvantages of Social Networking

Nevertheless, whereas social networking has the above advantages, it also registers certain disadvantages that may make it detrimental. Hoye, van Hooft, and Lievens (2009) stipulate that social networking may mislead individuals to develop stronger social ties, which may prove detrimental according to the formalist social network paradigm. Similarly, the authors argue that social networking constricts individual behavior inasmuch as it exposes them to multiple opportunities. Moreover, social marketing using social media posts may decrease one’s chances of landing jobs or advancing in their careers due to the negative effects of addiction associated with platforms such as Facebook. As a matter of fact, potential employers or mentors may consider a person who uses social media as being unproductive, which may hamper their career chances. Also, one may become exposed to information overwhelm due to multiple sharing of retweets, YouTube videos, and Facebook posts, which may hamper the effectiveness of the platforms. The issue of privacy also arises when it comes to social networking, Social media owners have the prerogative to share too much information concerning one more that they would like to share. This may expose them to ridicule and even diminish their chances of getting employed due to certain inappropriate contents shared.

Conclusion

Social networking plays an integral role in the career advancement of individuals. It possesses several advantages such as establishing a reliable business network, marketing one positively, and sharing pertinent information among others. However, the advantages notwithstanding, social networking may also expose a job seeker of career professional to privacy issues and overwhelming information, which may hurt their professional chances. Thus, in order to enjoy is advantages, one needs to act carefully and use the platforms judiciously.