Over the weekend, I was on Facebook and noticed that one of my online “friends” had posted a lot of photos of a trip she had taken. In scrolling through my feed, I noticed this gal sporting a suggestive pose and being fondled by another girl. My first reaction was, “why would she post that for everyone to see?.” And then I immediately started thinking about how a potential employer may also see it. Which leads me to this post…
If you EVER plan on looking for a new job, be careful what you post online!
A study released by CareerBuilder.com, showed that more than 1 in 5 employers search social networking sites to screen job candidates. One-third of the hiring managers who use social networks had found information there that caused them to remove a candidate from consideration for a job.
Top areas for concern among these hiring managers included:
41% – candidate posted information about drinking or using drugs
40% – candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
29% – candidate had poor communication skills
28% – candidate bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employees
27% – candidate lied about qualifications
22% – candidate’s screen name was unprofessional
21% – candidate was linked to criminal behavior
19% – candidate shared confidential information from previous employers
The study did find that 24% of hiring managers found content on social networks that helped convince them to hire a candidate. To read the study results from Career Builder, click here.
The bottom line is, don’t post suggestive photos, nasty or threatening comments or, in short, anything you would not show to a prospective employer! If you do, you may be harming your chances of getting a new job in the future.
And don’t be fooled by thinking your privacy settings are protecting you. There are people out there that can hack into your information and there are also computer and coding glitches that can make your private information public. I recently read of a glitch in Facebook that did this very thing. It was fixed quickly, however info that was meant to be private had already been made public to (I believe) non-Facebook employees that discovered the glitch.
So before you tell the world, or show the world everything you do during your time off, stop and think about whether or not you want to share that info with a prospective employer. If you post the info/photos online, you are doing just that. You may not like having to limit what you post, but in reality, you need to.
Kimberly
Marketing That’s Easy
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