There is an ongoing debate in the world of recruiting and hiring regarding Social Media.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a recruiter, candidate, hiring manager, or employee, you probably have a side of the fence on which you dwell. The question that everybody is pondering is whether employers should look at someone’s Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn profiles to determine whether they are a match for the company to which they are sending a job application.
I generally try to keep my personal life separate from my professional life. However, that was much easier said than done in the days of landline telephones and fax machines. With the advent of email and smartphones, many employees find themselves replying to work queries while at home after their workday is complete. With social media, anything that you say or do now runs the risk of staying on the internet forever.
Another way of looking at the changing times is through the old saying, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” Now, the phrase should be, “What happens in Vegas, lives forever on Facebook.”
It seems that too often, individuals will write so many comments that they wouldn’t say directly to someone in person. What’s the point of broadcasting foul language to 500 people, instead of saying it directly to three people in person? It’s a disconnect that is so easy to forget.
With that in mind, here is some advice: check your social media profiles. Make sure that you remove your name from anything that you wouldn’t want an employer or professional contact to see. Everybody likes to have some fun on the weekends, but if you’ve got obscene pictures plastered all over the place, or constant posts littered with foul language, then you might want to start auditing your public profile.
Remember, many on Facebook have 100-500 friends, which means that you’re literally broadcasting your message to 500 preapproved people, and then they might choose to share it with more. Keep a lid on the things that you would otherwise want to be private.