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Beware of Social Networking…It may effect your job search

As part of my duties as a recruiter I always search online for a job candidates online presense.  This starts with a Google search of the candidates name and can often lead to finding out all about the social networking profiles, past blog posts, basically anything with their name attached.

I recently read a statistic that said that over 77% of job recruiters check their candidates online profiles.  So that means that many of the jobs that you are submitting yourself to will check up on you.  So if you have those “fun” party pics online from last 4th of July, I will see them.  If you are posting unkind comments about people, places or things, I will see that too.  That can have a very adverse affect on your job prospects.  Those pictures might show you in a certain viewpoint that will make a corporate recruiter or headhunter decide you are not the right fit for any positions.

I have heard, and seen myself,  many horror stories about candidates Facebook, Myspace, Blogposts, Twitters etc.  Everything that you post online is there forever.  You may delete it on one site, but the way there are so many sites that collect information you never know if it is really gone.

So if you are currently looking for a job, you have to make sure that your online presence is the type of person that a company would want to hire.  If you have racy, drunken, irresponsible pictures on your sites, that may send a negative impression to the hiring authority.  You need to remove them and get your profile to be a generic version of yourself.  If you want to share pictures and comments with your friends, email them or call them.  You don’t need to be sharing that picture of you with eyes half mast and 20 beer bottles on the coffee table.  Because if it is there, I will find it and that won’t earn you many points in the responsibility department I use when evaluating candidates to present to my clients.

I suggest you look at your social networking accounts and clean them up.  Even protecting or limiting your profile can not prevent people from seeing what you are posting online.  If you want that perfect job, think about what you want to be viewed as and edit accordingly.

I finally suggest that you do a Google search on yourself to check to see what you are presenting to the world.  Make sure it is the impression you want to give to the person who holds the key to your dream job.  Because I guarantee (well, at 8 times out of 10) that recruiter will be doing the same Google search on you.