- Avoid Unprofessional Content and Pictures – Be sure that you are presenting yourself in the best possible light by avoiding unprofessional content and pictures. Remember that site users will not only be able to see what you post about yourself but they will also be able to see what friends post about you and vice versa. Remember to pay attention to tagged photos and content that you did not necessarily post, but can be linked back to you and be potentially damaging.
- Choose Your Friends Wisely – When accepting to link your page to a friend’s page, exercise caution and make good decisions. To keep your page professional, make sure you have chosen to associate with friends who also maintain a professional online image and monitor their sites closely on occasion to avoid any surprises.
- Update Your Profile Regularly – Maintain control over new information that is posted to your site. It’s important to monitor and update your profile on a regular basis to catch anything that can be seen as incriminating. Plus, when you’re scrubbing your page and links for inappropriate content you can take the time to update and highlight your latest professional accomplishments. Include links to your updated online career portfolio to showcase your work experiences and accomplishments.
- Google yourself – After you have created your social networking page, type your name into a Google search to find out what employers might see when searching for your name, email address, screen name, and phone number. If you find information that can be used against you, find out how you can combat that digital dirt with services like Reputation Defender.
- Change Your Privacy Settings – Did you find too much potentially damaging information on your social networking page that you cannot remove or your friends insist on posting inappropriate messages? Consider setting your pages to private. There are different levels of privacy you can select from as well, so when in doubt be conservative. When employers search for you, they will most likely able to see your profile picture despite the settings of your page, so be sure that that this image is “employer friendly.”
How Your Facebook or MySpace Page Can Impact Your Job Search
As the amount of personal information available online to potential employers increases every second, candidates these days are making first impressions on employers long before they even show up for the interview.
No longer are sites like MySpace and Facebook just for college students posting their inappropriate pictures from the previous weekend, these sites now appeal to a different demographic—recruiters and employers looking to learn more about candidates they’re considering for employment.
More than 12,500 business professionals across the Nexxt Network of thousands of industry and geographic-specific sites participated in a poll that asked if business professionals are concerned about employers seeing their Facebook or MySpace pages. Surprisingly, about 18 percent of respondents are confident in employers finding them online and actually use these sites as a resource for promoting themselves to employers.
Even more surprising is that over 40% of professionals that participated in this poll don’t even have a social networking page. But, social networking sites continue to grow and more and more people are creating a presence on the web for personal or professional purposes than ever before.
Who Uses Social Networking Sites
When first introduced, sites like MySpace or Facebook were mainly utilized by high school and college students, but now the business professional crowd has quickly entered that space. According to msnbc.com, more than 41 percent of Facebook users are over the age of 35 and social networking is no longer seen as an evil of the job search world, but rather a professional networking tool. But, it is important to remember that when participating in these sites, you are creating an online image that should be carefully managed in order to be sure you are making a good impression on your site visitors, especially those who may be looking to hire you.
How to Create a Positive and Professional Online Image
If you do not have a social networking page and are looking to create one, there are a lot of options available to you: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, a personal blog, or even an Online Career Portfolio. These are all viable options to showcase your resume and other relevant career-related information that will give employers an opportunity to learn more about you online.
When creating or modifying your profile on any of these sites, it is important to follow these easy steps to stay professional and create a professional online image:
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Victor D. •Hiring and Firing Discrimination has been and will continue going on for ever! Small businesses and corporate giants alike, always find loopholes to break the law, or do "unethical practices." With so much practice, many companies have become "unethical experts." Remember: HR department is working for the company, not the job seeker. -
Laura Anderson •I moved back to my home state and have been staying with friends. That was almost 9 months ago; literally 100s of resumes and applications later, I've had less than 10 interviews. My applications and resumes all reflect skills and education I've earned over a 40 year professional life. Yes, age discrimination is alive and well. I actually went to one interview and the young woman I spoke with was impressed and the interview went well. She advised she'd be getting in touch with me within a week. On the way to the exit however, a man in a windowed office heard our conversation and called her in. A moment later she came out to advise me they had several other candidates to interview and she would contact me ONLY if I was selected for the position. I never heard from her. So now, I'm doing crafts for outdoor sales and upcoming fall craft shows, and have just begun selling Avon. I've worked since the age of 13 and never went without a job more than a couple of weeks and then only because I wanted the break. Scary times. If anything happens to my situation with my friend, a shelter is the next stop.
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Tiff M. •Renee, Alonzo and especially Roman R....ditto! I think it's ridiculous that society has become the judge and jury of your personal life and personal time. I posed this question on LinkedIn once, asking HR professionals how what anyone does while unemployed or on vacation is anyone's business. Absolutely no response. All these phr and sphr certified hr professionals are sitting back doing the wrong thing so they can keep their jobs. If the certification is so valuable, why can't any of them figure out ways to help reduce unemployment? Why, because being self-serving and selfish is the american way. It's ridiculous. I can pass a test, but that doesn't mean I can solve problems, but they are deciding whether or not someone deserves to work. Creating every possible obstacle to the livelihood of hardworking human beings is the very opposite of the goal to re-employ america.
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Lila W. •Don't use any internet connection like FB, Tweeter, etc for your personal information. The government already has too much access to your personal info and to let a perspective employer find out something that can be taken the wrong way is not the way to go. Hello, goodby, how are you, that's nice is enough to talk about on line.Watch the pictures you post as well. These are crazy times and people are so not the usual.Desperation makes people do things that they would never do any other time in their life.
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Rick J. •I've been in touch with high school classmates through FB, after a seeing what they were posting for a few weeks; tattoo parties, every "cute" thing on youtube, I eliminated them as friends. One was our QB that I played with and know his whole family. I've taken a photo with a suit on, and added creditials, with photos of birds, water, mountains on FB. I been told that my page looks professional by old friends. I'm a massage therapist. A recent massage party client told me she Googled for therapists in her area that did chair massage, my name came up. That when I really became aware of the powers of that Internet.
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Anon •There appears to be only one purpose for doing online searches for a prospective employee - that is to eliminate them from the running. Sounds like recruiters and HR don't have enough to do since they are not really hiring, right?
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Paula Blankenship •AGE Discrimination is alive and well. I can't change WHEN I was born and if a company is that small minded, I don't want to work there anyway. Ditto on my Facebook page.
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Roman R. •Honestly, I don't really have anything that I consider particularly bad that I need to hide and I'm as professional as the next guy at work, but it's sad that we are encouraged to think that we must live under constant oppression and can't just have fun with life and have a "non-work-appropriate" web site. We must always be under the thumb of "the man"? We must live in constant fear that being a person and actually being relaxed and sharing "down time" with friends will make us look bad? Is this really the world we want to live in? Hey, look at this great new world that has come up in social interaction and easy communication, oh but wait, no, you must go to sleep in a suit because THEY ARE ALWAYS WATCHING YOU!!! Oooh!People who are taboo breaking exhibitionists or those who commit real crimes and post that information out there maybe should worry. The rest of us should not.I guess the only real solution is for people to relax a bit and realize everyone is human. I'm really not sure what is so bad that I might put on a clearly non-work related web site that would make an employer wary, but yes, I have a tattoo and like pop music. Is that so terrible? Mind your own business people.
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Syd •Human resources says they have only 6 seconds to look at the resume', how come they have time to look at the social networking media. It is a shame on the US corporations. It looks like HR spends more time on the internet than looking at the actual resume. Another thing I never understood is how could HR decide for the technical people when they don't know anything about the field they are hiring for.
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Starbuck A. •This was well before FB really caught on, but I remember being hired by a fuddy-duddy office manager at a law firm whom I wasn't nuts about and then, somewhat reluctantly, to the three attorneys that I would be working for. I liked them and we appeared to get on famously but I learned through someone else who worked there about a month later that I wasn't hired because she didn't feel I would "fit in" nor did she she feel I would get my work done. I have something of an unusual mullet hairstyle and a few more earrings than some people would like, but to use that to judge my work ethic? Give me a break.
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Louise Smith •With so many hundreds (literally) of resumes being received by companies for each job, the purpose of HR is to DE-select in order to find the five or ten or so most likely to be suitable for further action, i.e. a phone call. Using FB and MS etc makes it easy to look for negatives to reduce the pile of resumes. Companies typically look for ways to be most efficient in getting a task accomplished. Hiring a body involves screening hundreds of resumes in order to hand the hiring mananger enough to make a selection and get on with the process. "Good Enough" is the new motto in this sad economy.
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Melissa •I have to agree with the article. I'm a researcher for a recruiting firm and when I do background checks on candidates and also run a check on FB and myspace to see if there is illegal activities going on...also be wary of just changing your privacy settings to your network only....you never know when a potential employer has a child/assistant/etc that attends/attended there and will do a search for them....a new social network that is great to be on to help sale yourself is linkedin.com its the business version of facebook...
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Michelle Young •I am here to tell you that age discrimination is ALIVE and KICKING in the job market. I just attended an interview and was told that unless my education was obtained within the last seven years, it was IRRELEVANT. HUH??? Can you believe that? I'm sorry, but I do believe ALL education is relevant, no matter WHEN you obtained your degree. During this same interview, the interviewer told me that they frequently look at applicant's Facebook profiles. Needless to say, I immediately went home and temporarily deactivated my Facebook account, but unfortunately, I think I was already screwed with the discriminatory education comment that was made to me. It's a dog eat dog world out there, for sure.
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Alonzo Wiggins sr •You can not base a persons potential on the fantasies of a social networking... These( majority) are fabricationss. .
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Renee •This is discrimintaiion on a potential employers part...What you do outside of the business in your personal life is just that..YOUR BUSINESS. Isn't also discrimination that someone wouldn't hire you based on whether or not they like you? They don't have to like that person. If potential employee has the required skills &/or experience, then they have earned their way in the door. Jealously and ignorance I guess is where you get in life, but I would rather know I earned a job rather than kissing a** to get it. That's what we teach our children at home, but I forgot, the government also runs like these employers who thinks it is their business.Good, honest, hard-working people can't get a decent job in the US, but I forgot, our country is run by ignorance.It is bad enough people have to settle for things when getting a job...Govt and Employers already dictate your life, by telling you what you are going to be paid and what hours you are going to work, how to raise your children, how is used to not be a requirement to pay taxes...It used to be voluntary...Average Joe Blow can't even enjoy a night out to eat with the family because they are busy trying to figure out how to make more money that the gov't took out of their check...UGH!! The U.S. really needs to re-evaluate and take care of our people here.
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Charles Moncrief •It is an excellent article, one that I'll hold in my resource file.Keep in mind that discrimination is alive and well. If you tell dates that you attended a school, or date of degree award, employers are able to subtract 22 years and determine your date of birth within a small tolerance. For example, a BSEE awarded in 1982 implies you were born in 1960 and are approximately 50 years old.Keep in mind also that every HR organization with the least bit of intelligence has a defense package for every discrimination lawsuit. If you're 60 and applying for a job, and HR wants to age-discriminate against you, they access the age-defense template and put a personalized version into your file. It will have some encodings for failure to integrate with team members, cultural insensitivity, animal cruelty, etc. that make you unsuitable for the position.Charles
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The article was informative and interesting. It was worth the read. Anything that contributes to an individuals well being is beneficial.
Thank you,
Joe -
a smart cookie •Aha! I told my friends all this 3 years ago. I am 45 and I LOVE MySpace. But I am there for fun, not business...therefore, I don't use any portion of my name as a screen name, use my screen name as my registered name, do not post my pic on my main page and use an email address that NO ONE has. Viola. Problem solved. And I have yet to be contacted by any high school friends or relatives; so I am quite confident that a prospective employer would not.Further, I think it is the height of laziness for a recruiter to base an opinion of an interviewee before even talking to her/him. Online representation/interaction will never replace the "real deal". And if it does...we are ALL in a world of hurt.
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Dusten •Unfortunately, there is no easy way to prove the reason a person was not hired. In other words, if an employer considers hiring you and visits your myspace or facebook, then decides not to hire you. There is no requirement that they disclose the true reason you were not hired. You can't hide everything since so much information is freely available. The only thing you can do is what I call "due diligence", meaning you be as truthful as possible without disclosing things too negative. Some experts even suggest you leave political party affiliations off these publicly available websites. The problem is that most people use these sites for that exact reason...to express themselves, as an outlet for their personal feelings and views.
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jim •Talk about rambling on maguro_01On........I think the site provided me with some interesting options that I had not thought of before. I, as well, thought myspace was just a kids forum.
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SWozniak •Margo mentions age. The big bugaboo. I am 61. I look 51. However, I have not had an interview for a "real," ie, full-time or supportive, job since 2001 when I was 54.First, before someone insults my intelligence, yes, I have revised my resumes frequently and I currently have four: one each for writing, teaching, administration and working in academia. The administration resume eliminates my graduate work.I have no dates on my resume but I do list the number of years that I worked at each job. As you might imagine, some of my experience is very old but that does not mean it is no longer valuable.I almost never discuss the years I spent in retail. To me, it is work totally lacking in transferrable skills.
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maguro_01 •Personal information and pictures, especially, are illegal for prospective employers to require. It was required years ago and eliminating that requirement was actually hard-won progress. A few jobs (like modeling) need appearance data. True, a huge nose ring and florescent orange hair could be a deal breaker if you want to sell Rolls-Royces in Connecticut. But for most jobs a picture is irrelevant. So is your ethnicity, race, age, and so on which is what pictures are for. Why empower businesses that think otherwise? Why allow them invisibility? Whoever you are, you are helping to set the stage for the next generation as well as yourself the next time you look for a job. If someone thinks they get an edge in one situation, they will seriously lose in another. We may make friends at work, but that's not why we go there. We need some sort of social contract at work so we can work well with others we might not be friendly with otherwise. We do best for ourselves if our work and the team's work is excellent. Perhaps for some people work and life completely overlap. That adds a burden to the non-productive parts of the workplace that it can't bear. Hanging out at work should be discouraged since it does lead to people hiring prospective friends or fellow community members instead of the strongest co-workers. Let's not go back to the bad old days. It should be possible to pull pictures when looking for a job, though that may make pulling the pictures a sign of a job search. Perhaps networking sites can be asked or required to make pictures private as a setting, but people must be able to pull the pictures and leave the rest of their site private.
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