Tertiary students' use of social media for networking, personal branding and job seeking

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceived effectiveness of social media as a tool for networking, personal branding and job seeking, by third year Information and Knowledge Management students and honours Information and Knowledge Management students at the University of Johannesburg. This study adopted a qualitative-mono method research approach, with questionnaires as the data collection technique of choice. The questionnaires that were distributed to both third year Information and Knowledge Management students and honours Information and Knowledge Management students consisted of five closed-ended questions and three open-ended questions. The questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 204 students, 164 from the third year Information and Knowledge Management group and 40 from the honours Information and Knowledge Management group. The data was then analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. From this research, it was discovered that all of the students sampled, both on a third year level and on an honours level, had an active social media account. With regards to networking, personal branding and job seeking it was reflected, based on the responses, that students were aware of but to a lesser extent using social media for personal branding and job seeking. With networking being the predominant reason for utilising social media. This brings about a sense that it needs to be continuously instilled, especially in exit level tertiary students, that social media can be used, just as effectively for personal branding and for job seeking, as it is used for networking. Theoretically, the study contributes to understanding the perceptions of third year and honours Information and Knowledge Management students towards Social Media as a platform for networking personal branding and job seeking.