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Thursday, August 20, 2009

A Warning to Share with Your Students

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It goes without saying nowadays that our personal lives can be easily displayed to the world thanks to the Internet. It’s all about being somewhat Internet savvy and using some common sense when posting anything about our lives. Yet I’m sure you know many students who post every detail of their lives on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Tagged, or any of the popular social networking sites. Everything from what they ate for breakfast, to how they can’t stand a certain class to even an exact time and location of where they will be hanging out in the afternoon! Unfortunately, many do not think about or even know of the consequences to pouring such intimate details out to the world. Using social networking sites is quickly becoming the way for companies to be in touch with their customers – and their employees as well. It is essential for students who are preparing for their futures as professionals to be aware of this. Unfortunately, something negative that they post today, may come back to haunt them a few years down the road when a potential employer is conducting a background check.

I wanted to share the following slideshow I found through Marketing Profs: Five Ways Facebook Can Get You Fired. Paul Dunay, Global Managing Director of Services & Social Media at Avaya, put these five stories together to show how seemingly innocent comments can cost one their job. A couple of these made me laugh as they were just outright ridiculous (actually they were all silly), but the unfortunate thing is that they are true. I encourage you to share this with your students!



Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Let’s Clear Up Some Common MBTI® Assessment Misconceptions

 Written by Karen Gonzalez
 One of the biggest misconceptions I hear about the Myers-Briggs® (MBTI®) assessment, from those who are not very familiar, is that the tool is a way to point out one’s weaknesses. I’ve had several discussions with friends and acquaintances about this when they ask me where I work. A few have even been scared to take the assessment as they believe that their results will show something negative about their personality type. I’ve even had a friend tell me, “I don’t want it to tell me I’m crazy”. Even though that particular conversation was quite amusing, I had to clear that up with my friend. In no way does the MBTI tool work to make anyone feel as if their type preference is not worthy. This got me thinking that many students may have heard about the MBTI tool (or maybe just about inadequate personality assessments off of the internet) but they may be thinking similar thoughts when asked to take it for career development purposes.


So when our Director of Research, Rich Thompson, wrote the article “How to Properly Use a Personality Assessment” (published in Talent Management Magazine, August 2009), I knew I needed to share this with you. Rich lists the top seven misconceptions about the MBTI assessment. Even though this document was published in a corporate magazine, it applies to all organizations and audiences. As Rich states, “proper use of the instrument results in expanding vision and opportunity, while misuse can result in pigeonholing and exclusion.” This article is a wonderful resource that you can share with your colleagues, students and friends. I know I’m going to keep this handy for the next time my friends ask me where I work!