The job market’s heating up. Here’s an update on something I wrote four years ago when I noticed a correlation of certain types of social media activity to job switching.
With the rise of web 2.0, I’ve noticed some new indicators that pop up when someone’s looking for a new job. No value judgments intended – just taking note of some workplace trends.
You know most of the old ones:
- Randomly overdressed for the environment. “I just felt like wearing something nice today.”
- Sudden medical appointments. “How lucky, I needed a dentist appointment and he just happened to have a slot just open up.”
- Spur-of-the-moment one-day vacation plans. “I just need to get away for a day to clean the house.”
- “Work” calls to your mobile phone that need to be taken from a conference room.
- A sudden stop to complaining from someone who used to complain incessantly.
For social media in particular:
- Getting LinkedIn requests from a person who has suddenly connected to dozens of co-workers and partner contacts
- A sudden uptick in publishing activity on Twitter and content sharing that’s work-related
These are all situations I’ve seen or managed. Over the years, what I’ve come to realize is that life is too short to be a disgruntled worker. Disgruntled employees will kill a business. It’s why Zappos pays employees to quit. So it’s best for people to separate when the time is right – without the subversiveness. In many cases, if you’re ready to move on, it’s likely that your employer is ready for you to move on as well.
Linkedin should allow people to buy a “shut up” subscription which would keep all your updates, etc off the public feed for some period of time. That way you could add new connections, spruce up your work history, etc and not worry about it being so blatantly obvious to your co-workers.
In the era of 99% of mobile-based conversations occuring via text, it’s really conspicuous when someone has to step away to take a voice call on their mobile. Ha!