Is Your Social Presence Impacting Your Job Search?

In an ideal world, our personal social presence online would be completely separate from our professional image. The fact of the matter is, hiring managers are likely to poke around your social presence for any potential red flags and you should be taking the necessary steps to make sure yours is as buttoned-up as it can be. Nobody’s saying that you can’t share that cute cat meme or post a picture of that glass of wine you had one weekend at the vineyard, but there are ways to ensure you’re keeping these two worlds separated.

Start by going private

Setting your online profiles to private across the board doesn’t just make it hard for hiring managers outside of your network to prod around, but it also keeps out plenty of other unwanted visitors at the same time. If someone should be in your network, you’ll friend them or they’ll friend you, so go private and keep your circle tight because there are virtually no downsides to keeping things just a touch more exclusive.

Be aware of your profile photo

Even if you do go private, your profile photo will most likely still be visible to anyone who searches for you. We know, we know, you’re probably not chugging a beer in your profile picture, but it might be best to have your most presentable photo front and center when you’re going through the job search process. Not to mention, with your face plastered all over social media, it’s probably ideal to put your best self out there.

Think twice before posting

This is a general rule that just about everybody should observe online, but it’s especially important if you know that hiring managers will be looking closely at any of your social media profiles. Not sure if you should post that thing? That probably tells you all you need to know. Look over your profiles as if you were a hiring manager considering yourself for the job. Does it all check out? Is there something on there that might make them raise an eyebrow? Consider deleting anything that sticks out when you click through your profile using this lens. You will emerge with the online presence of somebody that any company would feel comfortable bringing on the team.

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