Social Career Management: Social Media and Employability Skills Gap

Social capital theorists have established decades ago that well connected people do better in life. The emergence of online social networking sites has given a new impetus to building and exploiting networking for career management. While professionals acknowledge that social networking is essential for business and development, research indicates that new graduates coming into the corporate world are not equipped with the up to date skill set. Through the lens of improved employability objectives, this paper draws conclusions from a recent study of UK business graduates and their use of social networking. The paper presents for discussion an employability skill set for contemporary business professionals based on the literature, and calls for higher education to address the skill gap shown by our study.