Social media has revolutionized the way we communicate with each other today! Internet has become an incredible source for job seekers to find jobs but it has its share of pitfalls as well – mainly in regards to social networking. It’s easy to contemplate that you’re just venting to friends or family only to find later that it’s actually costing you a job!
Navigating the social media can be rough sometimes. You have to ascertain that everything you post is proper and appropriate. Unless you’re looking to get fired, tweeting about how boring your job is, how inferior your co-workers are or how loathsome you find your boss perhaps isn’t such a great idea. After all, you never know who all are viewing your profile or where your tweets are actually winding up.
So here are some suggestions on how to behave in the social media space and tread carefully:
Search yourself online:
Start by searching yourself on the most popular search engines like Google or Bing, to see what all information is out there. Check for any old profiles or accounts that you are not using any longer that are still showing up and delete those accounts. Because unless you delete them they will stay connected to you forever.
Make privacy your friend:
Today more than 92% of employers use Facebook, Twitter or other social networking sites for hiring which makes them really important. They scoop you out online either during the screening or hiring process. And what you think is hidden behind the veil of privacy may not actually be. Your personal status updates might be already impacting your prospect of landing your next job. So the main thing is to make sure you are conscious of the privacy settings and using them. You don’t have to give up on social media, but have to realize what’s accessible openly can hurt you in your professional space. A lot of bosses might be checking in on their employees’ Facebook pages and would be looking down on pictures of them partying when they called out sick. So a great way of preventing your boss from busting you is to avoid adding them on your personal profiles. But if you cannot exclude them from your social networks then make sure they aren’t a part of your personal group at all!
Avoid Over sharing:
At the end of the day, the best guard is to stop oversharing altogether. Agree, it might be tough to wean off perpetual tweeting and posting but oversharing can irritate the people around you and also make you look brash and boastful. If you cannot control the urge to share every few minutes than at least share things that make you look knowledgeable and proficient in your preferred career. For example, if you are searching for a job in marketing or are already employed in that vocation, retweet about changes in brand building instead of what all you did over the weekend. It’s extremely imperative to draw a line. Personal sentiments about your office or co-workers are perhaps going way too far. “Once you hit ‘share,’ you typically can’t get it back. So tread cautiously!
Swear at your own peril:
Employers have zero or little tolerance for the use of profanities online. Profanity is offensive, unprofessional and is not tolerated in most workplaces. As old fashioned as it might sound, steer clear of blasphemies and keep your language clean. Remember- You can always have an edge over the others without being obscene.
Just remember, we are not living in times of isolation. Be clever and alert about what you are sharing online and know that someone out there is checking you out. Don’t give them reasons to turn away. Some people say that employers shouldn’t be permitted to dissect personal updates on social networks. And some say that it’s unfair to assess personal lives to define professional qualifications. We are passing into a new terrain where our lifestyle and alleged professionalism are both fair games if you put it out there on social networking. So view this as universal and embrace the opportunity to openly promote the very best of what you have to offer. Include activities and references that highlight your assets!
