Our relationship with the digital world has changed vastly over the past twenty years. Today, over half the world’s population uses social media in some way – to connect with friends, share stories or for other purposes like education and entertainment. We did some interview with our delegates of the Zoom EAER Day to get some opinions

EAER Day on SocialMe

Our online profiles are digital representations of ourselves – leading many employers to use social media to find out more information about a potential candidate and whether they would be a right fit for the job. Just as we would want to make a good first impression during the application and interview process, we now also need to make a good impression online, especially if we use social media and our profile’s are publicly available. This is where the newly launched EAER ‘Social Me’ toolkit on digital professional branding for people in recovery, written by the Dutch Foundation of Innovation Welfare 2 Work, comes in.

During the EAER Zoom Day, moderated by Pieter van Schie we talked about that ‘Digital access is a basic human right’. Caroline agrees. She found out that when she could not pay her pre-paid membership she had to go to the McDonalds to get access to internet. A couple of times she found out that she missed a very good job opportunity (because she was not able to get access every day): ”It’s more or less a vicious circle: No money, no access to internet, not able to call potential employers, not able to find new job opportunities to get a chance on salary”.

Rob told a similar story during the Zoom call: ,,I found out that when I called why I was not invited for a job interview that ‘me not being present on social media was odd and that they advice me to built a presence – showing my skills and work I do for the community’. Selma said it’s not fair and also not allowed to reject ‘ for a lacking social media presence’: ,,Ofcourse it’s never so spoken out, because then the potential employer would be in trouble.But it’s clear that each employer looks at what you are doing on social media.” Pieter, the moderator of the day’:,,It’s in our Social Me workshop: Not being on Social Media is basically a red flag”.

Social Media is Serious Business

Yvette: ,,For me it’s clear: SocialMe’ is serious business. You need to put in time and do your home work to know what you have to do on Social Media. As a person, seeking for a job, you present yourself as a potential employee. This day made it very clear for me: You always have to be professional on screen as well… I expect to make a lot of use of the Social Me support packages.”

Caroline: It was very interesting to hear all the pointers and tips and tricks, certainly now during Corona times and the current lockdowns. It was a lovely EAER day. I thought it was very interesting and learnt a lot of being more professional on social media’.

EAER Platform

EAER Project Website

We are approaching the final stages of the EAER project. On February 17th 2021, the Dutch Foundation of Innovation Welfare 2 Work organised ‘Digital EAER Day 2021’ to showcase all the work we have done. The EAER days were designed to connect the EAER programme with the local and regional Social Networks for people in recovery. The digital event turned out to be ‘lovely’.

EAER Final Stages

The first Dutch EAER days were on October 10th, 2019. The second Dutch EAER days were held on Wednesday February 17th, 2021. It was very important to organize this 2nd event in the final stages of the EAER project. The European Action for Employment in Recovery (EAER) project is a partnership of four European organisations with the aim to use collective knowledge to create resources that would help people in recovery access employment and to share knowledge and practice with other organisations working in employability projects with people who have a history of problem drug use. The partners have produced some amazing intelectual outputs which were showcased during the 90 minutes of the Zoom meeting.

EAER Day Highlights

The Dutch EAER Day digital zoom event of February 17th 2021 highlighted the resources created for the .@EAERpartnership project and presentations including:

• An Overview and Examples of good practice in Employability and Recovery
• DPI SocialMe Supportpackages
• SocialMe Workshop(s)

Feedback

The feedback at the end of the Dutch digital EAER Day event was very positive. On a scale from 1 tot 5 stars, 27 participants rated the presentations on 4,5 stars. We expect that the local and regional Dutch organisations will use the guides, tools and instruments developed by the EAER partnership.

‘I expect to make a lot of use of the Social Me support packages’

‘It was a lovely EAER day. I thought it was very interesting and learnt a lot of being more professional on social media’.