Social Media & Your Job Search

For better or for worse, social media has impacted all areas of our lives, including our careers. Everything we say and do online is being watched, whether we know it or not. And it can open or close doors of opportunity.

Social Media & Your Job Search

According to a CareerBuilder study,

“70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates”
“57 percent are less likely to interview a candidate they can’t find online”
“54 percent have decided not to hire a candidate based on their social media profiles”

The Catch-22 of Social Media

Based on these findings, job seekers are between a rock and a hard place. Recruiters may not interview you if they can’t find you but you may not be hired based on your social media presence and activity.

To put this another way: job seekers can be disqualified before even being considered for a position if they don’t have an online persona. If they are online, they could still be penalized because of what they post and how much they post. That’s not cool.

People had personal and professional lives before social media and I don’t think this new media should impact their livelihoods. Also, some people are not on social media because they value their privacy. Once you’re online, you’re open to all sorts of scrutiny and attacks, as this study shows.

According to Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder, “Job seekers should make their professional profiles visible online and ensure any information that could negatively impact their job search is made private or removed.”

Granted, there are some things that should not be posted online. But what about the perceptions, biases and values of recruiters? We cannot control those.

For example, we’ve heard several stories about people being fired on reprimanded for being in photos. They weren’t doing anything but they were seen in them.

How Employers Use Social Media

The article also stated: “When researching candidates for a job, employers who use social networking sites are looking for information that supports their qualifications for the job (61 percent), if the candidate has a professional online persona (50 percent), what other people are posting about the candidates (37 percent) and for a reason not to hire a candidate (24 percent).”

I have questions about my job search based on the above statement.

If employers use social networking sites looking for information that supports job seekers’ qualifications for the job, what do they think when they find me online? I am a freelance writer seeking a full-time, permanent learning and development position. My training experience is highlighted on LinkedIn and my writing life is found on Marcie Writes.
I do my best to ensure that I have “a professional online persona” on LinkedIn and my blog but I do retweet topics about politics, racism, classism and other things that resonate with me or are based on my values. Are hiring managers evaluating or judging me based on what they see?
How much do recruiters weigh comments about the job seeker based on conversations and comments? Some opinions could be waaaay off, depending on who’s giving it.

What Not to Do on Social Media

There are things you shouldn’t post online – period. As I stated before: the job search process is hard enough, don’t give employers reasons to disqualify you. Let’s look at the most cited disqualifiers.

“Provocative or inappropriate photographs, videos or information”
“Information about them drinking or using drugs”
“Discriminatory comments related to race, gender, religion”
Bad-mouthing “their previous company or fellow employee”
Lying about qualifications
“Poor communication skills”, including grammar and punctuation errors and misspelled words
Links to criminal behavior
Sharing “confidential information from previous employers”
Unprofessional screen name
Lying about an absence
Posting too frequently

Safeguard Your Social Media Presence

Your information can be found online even if you make your profile private. You don’t know who your friends, connections and followers are connected to who can access your profile.
You can control what you post on social media but you cannot control how people perceive your content.
Before social media employers could not ask for your age, race, gender and other “protected” information. Now, all of this information is available with a click or a swipe. And I believe it impacts whether you’re called for an interview or not.
Look up your name on Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and other search engines and see what comes up. Hiring managers are doing it; so should you.
When people post pictures of you, you cannot remove them; you have to ask them to do it. If images are posted that can be misconstrued, ask the person who posted them to remove them immediately.

One More Thing

Even after you get a job, you have to be mindful of what you say and do on social media because you can get fired. So project and protect your online persona by every means necessary.

What About You?

Have you, or anyone you know, gain or lost employment opportunities because of your social media profiles and activities?

Let us know in the comment box below.

Image credit: Unsplash