Linda Ashar, JD, Faculty, Dr. Wallace E. Boston School of Business and
Wes O’Donnell, alumnus, veteran, Director of Social Media
What does it take to stand out in today’s digital landscape? In this engaging conversation, Linda Ashar speaks with Wes O’Donnell – military veteran, University alum, filmmaker, and director of the social media team at American Public University – about the power of social media in identifying career opportunities. Wes shares valuable strategies for students and professionals to build their professional network, leverage social media platforms, and showcase their skills through e-portfolios. From crafting compelling LinkedIn profiles to leveraging AI for content creation, Wes provides practical insights and real-world experiences to help listeners navigate the evolving online professional space with confidence.
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Linda Ashar: Hello, everyone. I am Linda Ashar. Welcome to today’s podcast. It is my pleasure to be speaking today with Wes O’Donnell. Wes is an accomplished, renaissance man. He is a speaker, filmmaker, journalist and writer.
He’s a veteran of the Army and the Air Force, works tirelessly with veteran causes and, not the least of his accomplishments, he is the head of our media team here at American Public University. Wes, thank you for being here today to talk about leveraging social media to advance one’s career.
Wes O’Donnell: Thank you so much, Linda. And with an introduction that sweet, I think I need to go to the dentist after that, it’s very gracious. Yeah, I’m very happy to be here, I work in social media for American Public University System and we love our audiences out there, our students, our graduates and maybe even some new students if we can bring them into the university. Excited to be here.
Linda Ashar: Well, to start off, tell us a little bit about what you do in your media capacity here at APU. What does it mean to be running the media team?
Wes O’Donnell: Sure. So, I have a team of four individuals and every individual is assigned sort of their own piece of the pie at American Public University System. For instance, the incomparable Nerissa Custer, senior manager of social media; she manages American Military University because she’s a mil spouse.
And we have another, I almost say new but she’s not new, she’s been here for a year now, Christina, she manages American Public University social media handles, and these are spread out across Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, I should say X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. And we’re always looking to expand onto new platforms where we can extend the university’s reach so there’s a lot of exciting places to explore.
Linda Ashar: So, it’s fair to say that you have an in-depth familiarity with social media platforms in your experience. And I know you do from your own enterprises and your experience here with American Public University enhances that. That’s why I’m so excited to talk to you today for benefit of students here at American Public University but also worldwide who can be listening to this podcast and others who are seeking to enhance their professional pursuits through the use of social media.
You have a lot of experience and advice to bring to that topic. But in terms of students, how can students strategically use social media platforms to build a professional network or advance their careers?
Wes O’Donnell: Linda, that’s a great question. And I graduated from American Military University myself back in 2011, and so this is close to my heart, and I want to help our students and our graduates even as much as I can. And so, these days, we cast a wary glance at social media. Sometimes, in some corners of the internet, it gets a bad rap.
But the way I think about it is for the students to really use it as a tool, just another tool in the professional toolbox to really help ensure that, when a potential employer is doing their due diligence and searching for a particularly high-ranking applicant, somebody who’s made it through the application process to a certain degree, they’re going to Google you and they’re going to look for some of your past social media posts.
Some companies will go deeper than others but, having that professional profile, especially on LinkedIn, complete with a professional photo and pay for a glamour shot if you have to and get that really sharp, really good-looking professional photo and a nice business attire because it makes a huge difference.
And then, of course, just making sure everything else on social is, at least related to your profile, is filled in like detailed work experience, any skills you might have. And don’t forget that compelling summary at the very top of your profiles to really hook somebody within the first few seconds of them scrolling by your social media profile.
Linda Ashar: Do you find that personal e-portfolios are helpful to link to these or build into social media platforms that you use?
Wes O’Donnell: Oh, absolutely. And I can tell you that we were doing … I had mentioned this new social media manager I have named Christina, I say new again but she’s been here for about a year. And when I was going through that hiring process as a director at a university looking for that individual, the resume is absolutely important but, in the case of being able to show, whether that’s in the classroom or real-world work that you’ve done in the past through written samples.
Or, in the case of my social media manager, creative samples from social campaigns that she’s performed in her past roles. That to me is gold. I love that because, to me, that’s the deciding factor between one candidate over another. And so, those e-portfolios are super, super important.
Linda Ashar: That’s really interesting. I teach an e-portfolio capstone class where students have the opportunity to learn more about creating an e-portfolio, not so much building one to go out and use immediately but understanding the value of an e-portfolio and putting that together with social media presence.
And it seems to me that there has been a real advancement in the employer use of e-portfolios where perhaps, I don’t know, five or more years ago there might not have been that much awareness of using them.
Wes O’Donnell: I would just, to add on to that, I would say … And I am not suggesting that this is the trend or everybody’s doing this right now but it’s becoming more common for people to leverage AI, which is a good thing, to leverage AI to help craft a really solid resume.
And what happens is they all start to look similar. When you’re looking through 100 resumes, you can tell because they all have certain characteristics and certain traits that are extremely similar and so I think is that e-portfolio proves that this is a human behind the resume and they really have a lot of value to offer the organization.
Linda Ashar: It’s where you could put your own personality in a professional way up front for somebody to see.
Wes O’Donnell: Yup, exactly.
Linda Ashar: It’s a necessary evil because resumes have to be done. We can’t say that there’s no sense in using them anymore because they’re the gateway tickets, if you will. They do have that look. I had this vision of a big plate of cookies who are all the same and, whatever cookie you pick, it’s still going to taste like all of those cookies.
That’s the problem, I think, that you’re pointing to. But you still want to have a good resume because, if there is an interest, the employer or other entity, maybe it’s a nonprofit who is even looking to use you as a volunteer for a special project. Those situations also look at resumes and they’re going to want to read your resume if they even have any interest. So, we can’t trash resumes but they don’t bring individuality to the table in my opinion.
Wes O’Donnell: I think it’s perfectly reasonable, especially on LinkedIn, to have a link to a PDF version of your resume and have links that take people to an e-portfolio and any other work that you might’ve done in the past.
And it’s a great all-in-one package to be able show a potential employer that you’re tech-savvy and you know what you’re doing and you’re making it easy for them to access all the information that they’re out there searching for and that’s going to make them maybe more inclined to want to call you in for an interview.
Linda Ashar: Yeah, I agree. And of course, every e-portfolio would have a resume as part of it. You still need to have that resume that shows, well, what have you done and when did you do it and what are the skills and all of those things are neatly packaged in a resume.
Let’s talk some more about leveraging social media. You mentioned LinkedIn. There may be some people listening that are not as familiar with LinkedIn as others.Tell us a little more about LinkedIn. What is LinkedIn?
Wes O’Donnell: Yeah, LinkedIn is really the professional social network. If we think of Instagram as a place to share photos and maybe Twitter or X as a place to see what’s happening in the global town square, LinkedIn is absolutely more of your business attire or business casual sometimes version of social media.
At least in my case, I have a lot of my coworkers, the president of the university is a connection and so maybe I’m not going to post what I had for breakfast on LinkedIn, it’s absolutely one of those more professional where you want to establish yourself as that thought leader and that, essentially, subject matter expert of what it is that you are going to school for and use the networking that’s inherent to LinkedIn to take that next step in your career.
Now, whether that’s a new job or a new company completely or just advancement within your current company, it really is. I’ve grown fond of LinkedIn over the past two years particularly, it’s just a really good tool for professional networking as opposed to something like Instagram or TikTok.
I’ve seen some professionals post memes or stuff that you might find on Facebook and people will call you out and say, “Hey, man, this is a LinkedIn. Why are you posting that?” That might be a little harsh, I say it’s okay to have a little bit of fun. I’m a jokester at work, I like to keep things light and optimistic as much as possible. But if you’re in the situation where you’re actively seeking employment, it’s best to keep the memes on Facebook.
Linda Ashar: Now, on the other hand, you wouldn’t post what you had for breakfast or maybe get into a discussion about vegan versus beef but you might post that you had breakfast with the chief of the Pentagon.
Wes O’Donnell: Yes, exactly. Yeah, that’s totally, totally legitimate. It’s a flex or it’s a humblebrag but it’s, absolutely, I think, not only fine, but encouraged to network. That is the big part of social media in general is join those groups and interact with those people that are related to your field of interests, participate in those discussions and then connect with those industry professionals of whatever that industry that you’re in.
Linda Ashar: And you just hit on the golden word, Wes, networking. That is the key value it seems to me, tell me if I’m wrong, that social media can provide for professional promotion and job seeking.
Wes O’Donnell: Yup, absolutely. And it goes back to the old adage “it’s not what you know but it’s who you know”. Now, I think there’s some gray area there, it’s not one or the other. Your knowledge that you’ve attained in school is absolutely important but there really is a truth to the component that, if you have someone that you’ve interacted with regularly, you’ve commented and liked positively some of their posts that interests you.
It’s going to be easier to send that person a message through social media and say, “Hey, just curious, I love your content, I think you’re killing it on LinkedIn with this particular subject, you guys happen to be hiring?” Just being more informal than going through the online application process, submitting a formal resume; you can do all that stuff later. But the networking right up front is a huge opportunity.
Linda Ashar: And that’s the other thing, you just put your finger on and that goes both ways. It’s not just casting your net out on the social media platforms and hoping somebody sees your bait. You can also reach out yourself and make those connections. You just alluded to that. Whether all of those connections respond to every single outreach, who knows? But the opportunity is there if you’re active and searching for opportunities.
Wes O’Donnell: No, you’re exactly right. Just to put the icing on that cake, I think it was at the APUS commencement last year and, on the flight home, I received a message through LinkedIn out of the blue and it was Jim Eder, the founder of American Military University 30 years ago. He sent me a message and he’s like, “Hey, Wes, I’ve seen your content on LinkedIn, you’re very passionate about veterans issues.” And he said, “I have a question about reaching out to the veteran community. How do you market to the veteran community?”
And that initial LinkedIn message from him which … Jim Eder is my hero so to get a message out of the blue. That evolved into an ongoing relationship where I’ve menteed myself into chatting with him once a month and we talk about business and it’s just those types of spontaneous, I won’t say spontaneous, but those types of serendipitous things can happen on LinkedIn when you put yourself out there, like you said. Don’t be passive, be active on these platforms.
Linda Ashar: You just mentioned another important word. Mentors. Is there a relationship with mentors and social media? Now, you just mentioned that you acquired a mentor relationship through social media connection. How else might that work?
Wes O’Donnell: Let’s stay with our LinkedIn platform because I really think that’s the best place for somebody who may be job seeking or wants to establish themselves as a subject matter professional. If you’ve followed the pages or the topics or the people that you’re interested in, you’re going to see their content, you’re going to be interacting with it and, if you’re also producing your own content to show off your knowledge of certain things, something like that is going to result in a lot more opportunities to see somebody who might turn into a great mentor.
And this is the thing that I love to say about mentors and that is that life is like a maze. And let’s say a military veteran or somebody who’s active duty is retiring from the military, they’re going out into the civilian workforce for the first time in 20 years or more and they’re faced with this big, open business landscape in the United States or anywhere they happen to be and it’s a maze. And that mentor is somebody who’s already gone through half the maze or three quarters of the maze or maybe they’ve gone all the way through.
And so, what they can do is they can come back to the beginning, the start of the maze and they can say, follow me, I know the way. Don’t go down that road, that’s a dead end or there’s a pitfall over there and they can really guide you through some of the perils and pitfalls and give you that advantage that you need. To me, that’s the power of mentorship.
Linda Ashar: Wes, we were talking about using sites like LinkedIn for connections, networking and mentorship before the break and we talked a little bit about e-portfolios as ways to showcase skills.
But beyond that, are there other things in social media and internet work that people, students in particular, but anyone, say, somebody who’s making a job change, should think of doing? There are many platforms where you can set up your own website pretty easily.
That would be a place where any portfolio could be placed, for example, could be linked to from other sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever you use. What are your thoughts about that? Is that too much work? Is that effective?
Wes O’Donnell: No, not at all. Social media is not for everybody, there are simply people who just have no interest in it and that’s totally fine. But what I’ll say is it’s all connected. It’s very easy to have a website connected to links crisscrossing each other on the internet from LinkedIn or from Facebook or from even YouTube if you enjoy creating video content or video showcases of your skills that you can then repopulate on your website.
And for me my test is, if I’m going to Google your name, what am I going to see on the first page of Google search results? Now, Google has recently started implementing AI to complement some of the search results that you’re going to see but, for most people, the first thing you’ll find is you’ll find their personal website should be the very first thing that pops up.
And through Squarespace or Wix, there are a number of options to make it extremely cheap and extremely easy to make sure that you’re putting out there exactly what you want people to see when they search for you on the internet.
And if you’re a job seeker, it’s almost required, you really, really should be thinking about having that website and then connected to all of your social media accounts. And if you’re not a social media user, I would say you are if you’re job seeking, at least create a profile that can be found and shows you in the best light for the purposes of looking for a job.
You don’t have to use it, you don’t have to get drawn into the endless scrolling on TikTok but at least Facebook, LinkedIn, so that, when you’re out there looking for that role, those employers can see, okay, this person’s not out here posting a bunch of end of the world content or stuff that might not be conducive to the values of the company that you’re trying to get into.
Linda Ashar: You mentioned AI, how can we use AI in its current incarnation and I’m thinking of ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot are two leaders of that right now for content creation. How can those be used, if they can, to assist this process of using social media to advance career development?
Wes O’Donnell: We are in a completely new realm of artificial intelligence with these large language models and there are a number of AI-driven tools that we can use on social that can enhance our content, that can help us schedule our content, they can help us match to the right career, they can help us with skill development.
There are a number of really, really powerful tools out there. I personally use ChatGPT and I use it daily and I never in a million years thought that I would be in there so much.
But just helping me brainstorm ideas for social media for the university and not taking what it puts out there wholesale but just using it to create that spark of innovation or imagination and saying, “Wow, that’s a cool angle.”
The AI knows what’s trending and it might help inform, at least in my role, it might help inform getting 100 views versus getting 100,000 views and I’ll take 100,000 because I want APUS in front of, I want the university in front of as many eyeballs as possible on social media.
But aside from my role in using AI, there are a lot of ways that somebody can use artificial intelligence to optimize their profiles and how they appear to the world on any of the social platforms. All of them, you have a main profile page that that employer is going to land on at some point. LinkedIn is really one of the best when it comes to being able to have a summary about yourself and then list all of your achievements and be endorsed by coworkers and have skills and all of that good stuff.
But even on Facebook, even on YouTube or TikTok, there is a profile page that you want to make sure that represents the best you. And you can do that work yourself, obviously, or you can use AI’s help and have it come up with an optimized summary for those potential employers about you. Wes O’Donnell is a veteran hiring speaker, director of social media, et cetera, et cetera and it is a time saver and it might even come up with something unique once in a while that you hadn’t thought of.
Linda Ashar: That’s good advice. You want to use AI thoughtfully because, just like that resume you mentioned where they all begin to look like, in my terms, all of the same cookies on the cookie platter, because AI is so helpful at creating resumes. And by the way, I think it’s fine that we use AI for that but that can carry too far into all of the descriptions of people where we want them to be unique start looking the same too.
Wes O’Donnell: You’re exactly right. This might be getting too far into the weeds but I’ve trained ChatGPT to, not only, say, be me, but to write in the voice tone and style of Wes O’Donnell. And I don’t post those posts in their entirety written by AI to social media, what I’ve done in the past is I’ve given AI samples of my writing from the past, maybe it’s from school, maybe it’s from articles that I’ve written for APU Edge, and I’ve said, “ChatGPT, analyze this writing sample for Wes O’Donnell for voice tone and style.”
And then it’ll read it all in four seconds and then it’ll come back and say, “Wes’s voice is informal, mildly humorous, sometimes informational and narrative,” and it’ll go through this process. And from that point forward I’ll say, “Using the voice tone and style of Wes O’Donnell, write me a short LinkedIn post about why hiring veterans is good for business because of composure and creativity under extreme pressure,” or something like that.
And it will do an amazing job at sounding like Wes and so I’ll take that and I’ll heavily customize it with my own experience, with my own background, with stuff that I’ve experienced while on active duty. The finished product is really something much better than I think I would have done on my own or at least in a much shorter amount of time.
Linda Ashar: Well, you just mentioned weeds. I think what a good analogy to what you just described is that, instead of being in the middle of weeds trying to create that post from scratch, AI having been trained in your style and language, landscaped the field for you to build on.
Wes O’Donnell: Yes, I love that.
Linda Ashar: Which is a beautiful use of AI. We talk about AI ideally being a partner, some of the leading scions of AI advancement and development say that that’s the best way to envision AI is as a partner and that’s how you have just described using it.
Wes O’Donnell: Yeah, it really is. That was a beautiful way to put it. It’s prepared the land for me to then go in and sow and plant my seeds and grow something beautiful and it really is a time saver. And occasionally, it will word something in a way, and I fancy myself a decent writer, it’ll write something that I’m like, “Wow, that is really good, ChatGPT, well done, I’m going to steal that sentence.”
And I should make the disclaimer that, if I do this on LinkedIn, it’s still me really changing it up quite a bit and making sure that there’s a lot of quality control and I don’t use it for school assignments because I am still in school myself. Having said that disclaimer, I do think it’s a powerful tool for content personalization.
Linda Ashar: Well, we have talked a lot about all of the positives of social media whether it’s LinkedIn or Facebook – I don’t want people to think Facebook can’t be used that way because it can and people do. But whatever you’re using, the point I want to not forget about is there is a dark side to using social media if it’s not done with care or proper attention.
What are common mistakes in your experience do people make, whether it’s students or others, with using social media that could hinder their career prospects with employers and how can they avoid it?
Wes O’Donnell: That’s a great question and I think the 800-pound gorilla in the room is neglecting privacy settings, it’s probably the first thing I’d say. You really don’t want to expose a lot of personal information. Professional information on a place like LinkedIn is fine.
I think email addresses are fine in something like an e-portfolio or a resume if you want to make yourself more easily accessible to be contacted by a potential employer, I think email addresses are probably absolutely a safe thing to have on there.
But for the purposes of other social networks, maybe don’t have your phone number on there or any other type of, your home address, any other type of personal information simply because there are so many scammers and spammers. And even, unfortunately, on LinkedIn, I’ll get messages, I’ll get five messages a day that are trying to sell me crypto or something.
Not paying attention to those privacy settings is big but don’t go overboard, don’t engage the privacy settings to the point where you’re making yourself where all they see, when that employer is trying to find out more about you, all they see is a name and a photo. At least that’s my recommendation, that’s my opinion on that.
And of course, unprofessional content. If you’re filming yourself driving 120 miles an hour in your IROC-Z on I-35 in Texas, maybe don’t post that to LinkedIn or even Facebook. In fact, let’s just make a rule now. If you’re breaking the law, probably don’t videotape it. This is hashtag not legal advice but I’m just using common sense here.
And over-posting, ignoring networking opportunities, having an incomplete profile, I’ve seen that quite a bit. I’ve seen outdated profiles that can appear super unprofessional. My advice is students should keep their profiles current even if you’re still in school and make sure that all that relevant information is filled in. And when I say that, I’m thinking of LinkedIn but it’s applicable to all the social platforms.
Linda Ashar: One last point you just mentioned, monitoring, the value of monitoring and keeping current. Not doing that would be a real pitfall of having not such a great profile on the internet if somebody goes to look. If you’ve still got your college freshman material up there and you’re getting your MBA, for example, that’s a big gap.
Or if you have nothing up there and you’ve only put, as you mentioned earlier, that photo and your name, that’s probably not very much to have up there. It should be fleshed out. So, how can we use things like maybe an AI analytic to optimize social media or keep track of how it’s working?
Wes O’Donnell: Sure, that’s also another great point that you’re making. It’s easy to follow all the best practices, put yourself out there and post regularly and stand on the rooftop and shout into the wind and hope that you’re being heard by the right people. But metrics and analytics, I live and die by likes, shares, comments, click-through rates.
I’m in there, on behalf of American Public University System, I’m very concerned with how many people are liking and commenting on the content that we’re putting out because that’s how my success is measured: our follower growth and our engagement.
But the same thing applies to individuals and all of the social platforms have some pretty in-depth analytics tools where, most of the time, if you have a post, you can see how popular a particular post is or how much engagement it’s getting.
Maybe you want to establish yourself as a thought leader in cybersecurity so you’re posting cybersecurity content, your opinion on breaking news in the cybersecurity community on LinkedIn. And maybe you notice that one particular topic is very hot, it’s getting a lot more engagement than normal.
And maybe it’s time for a pivot to start focusing on that particular topic in order to expand your reach because, the higher engagement that a particular post has, the further their algorithm, whether it’s Meta through Facebook and Instagram or it’s LinkedIn or TikTok even, the further it’s going to push it out to new viewers and we call those impressions or reach.
So, if you are trying to position yourself like a race car driver, if you’re trying to get pole position and you’re posting content, you want to establish yourself as that SME, ignoring those analytics that these platforms provide you. And now, almost all of them use AI to help consolidate all of those engagement metrics and give them to you in a very easily readable format.
You just have to go a little bit deeper on the platform to find those metrics than just shouting into the wind and hope that people are hearing the content that you’re putting out there.
Linda Ashar: To just summarize, because we’re reaching the end of our time here, Wes, it’s important to use social media. I think our conversation has pretty well solidified that using social media to advantage is an important step in self-promotion for whether it’s a job search or advancing your career in a job you have I’m hearing, for maybe a promotion that you might need to compete for.
These are all aspects of career advancement. And what I’m hearing is that you want to have a presence, an e-portfolio and a resume are the framework that’s important because they summarize who you are. They show individual aspects of who you are. They can list key accomplishments.
The portfolio can lend value to that in terms of photos and maybe video links and those kinds of things.
But you have mentioned along our conversation something even more important to me it seems, and that is adding content to your social media presence that is subject matter related to your profession or maybe professions.
I’ll make that plural because someone like you, for example, has many avenues of pursuits professionally that can be published in, whether it’s short posts or an article, copy, those are all key ways. And along that route you can hook up with a mentor, make other connections with others of like interest. Am I leaving anything out here?
Wes O’Donnell: No, I think all of that is great and you’re exactly right. If you really want to use that degree that you’ve toiled for and that you’ve put all of that work into, you just can’t neglect social for the purposes of posting achievements or your own content for subject matter expertise, for endorsements from colleagues or previous co-workers to highlight your skills.
There’s so much that you’re leaving on the table in our super competitive system that we’re in right now and, whatever your personal feelings are about social, you have to use it. At least think of it as a tool in the tool box that you at least want to have those bases covered and make sure that what you put out there is seen by the right people at the right time so that you can advance along the path that you want to advance along.
Linda Ashar: Wes, I can’t thank you enough for your time today, this has been such an interesting conversation. And dear podcast listeners out there, thank you for sharing your time today with Wes and me. Please come back for more interesting topics of discussion. Thank you. This is Linda Ashar saying goodbye.
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