Social media and social justice in the context of career guidance : is education enough?

Abstract

Social media is of growing importance for career guidance. The increasing penetration of the Internet into people’s lives has changed the context of, and requisite skills needed for career development (Hooley, 2012). Social media allows individuals to learn about employment opportunities and connect to people and information that can help them harness these opportunities (Staunton, 2016). A person’s use of social media (in tandem with their other online activities) generates their digital footprint, which is the traceable information that people leave (through purposive action or passive recording) when they go online (Thatcher, 2014). An individual’s digital footprint can be an asset or a liability for their career, depending upon how well they organize and control their online presence. The positive and negative aspects of digital footprints have implications for career professionals, as social media has changed the nature of their work (Kettunen, Vuorinen, & Sampson, 2013). The growing importance of individuals’ digital footprints, places an onus on career guidance professionals to engage in critical reflection upon the ethical and equity issues associated with social media and the use of digital technologies (Sampson & Makela, 2014). This chapter utilises the concept of digital footprints to illustrate the complexities of providing socially just career guidance in the contemporary technology-dependent neoliberal context. These complexities are explored in the following five sections. The first describes the need for a social justice perspective in career guidance in the contemporary context of neoliberal globalisation. Secondly, the purported growing importance of having an online presence for career development is detailed. Despite employers’ increasing usage of digital footprints to screen potential candidates (McDonald, Thompson, & O’Connor, 2016), research with university students in Australia indicates that their understanding of digital footprint management is highly variable (Buchanan et al., 2015). The third section draws on this research to detail the current status of career guidance within higher education in Australia, in relation to digital footprint awareness. Fourthly, feminist theory is employed to illuminate emergent dilemmas regarding social media. The final section of the chapter connects with the first by outlining a possible social justice agenda regarding social media and the implications of this for career guidance. Rather than providing a definitive account, the intention here is to be speculative and invitational in the ensuing discussion of social media and social justice for contemporary career guidance.