Social Media Etiquette for Job Seekers
The rise of social media usage presents many positives and negatives. One negative that is not often thought about is that it could, if you're not careful, have a negative impact on your job search.
Employers are looking not just at your resume but at social media, they may even do a Google search for your name to see what kind of things come up. The ability for them to do this may seem a bit of a privacy invasion, but whatever you put up on social media sites is free game and once it's been posted it is really hard to erase it completely. This is why it is extremely important to be wise when using and posting things to social media sites.
There is a kind of social media etiquette which should be followed if you don't want to make a negative impression on a potential employer before they even meet you face-to-face in an interview.
No inappropriate pictures. Pictures are probably the items on your social media site that may cause you the most harm when you are looking for a job if you are not careful about what pictures are displayed and posted. Any picture that you would not want your parents to see is not a good idea (ever) to have posted on social media pages. You may think that only your friends can see that picture of you flashing a crowd at Mardi Gras, but no security block is ever air tight so don't risk it. Don't post pictures of anything that will portray you in a negative light.
There is no background information posted with pictures so potential employers are not going to know that that one night you went out and got drunk and as a result have some unfortunate pictures, was a onetime thing. They could assume from the pictures that you go out drinking all the time and that is not often a quality that employers look for as that could lead to a lot of absences from work or late mornings. Remove any pictures of you drunk and any half or partially naked pictures.
No negative/foul language. Make sure that anything you write on social media pages is not filled with curse words. This does not portray you as very professional and you do not want your employer to think that this is all your vocabulary is made up of.
No bashing of your current employer. Whatever you may feel about your current job do not post your feelings about it on social media sites. A potential employer could see that and they may be worried about you publicly bashing their company if they were to give you a new job.
Monitor what your friends can post. Sometimes your friends can do you more harm than good. They think that picture of you passed out at a party is funny and so they post it to your page. If you have friends that are notorious for posting unflattering pictures or messages on your page it may be a good idea while you are searching for a job to restrict what they can post. Most social media sites allow you to block friends from posting or make it so that their posts to you are not public but only you can see them.
By taking precautions you can ensure that if potential employers check out your social media pages nothing unflattering will appear.
