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Adopting a professional approach with your Social Media is a key attribute and could make that all-important difference in securing your next job.
In today’s digital age it is essential for you as a candidate to take the right precautions to ensure your online social profile actually represents your professionalism. Here are a few helpful pointers to use your online presence to increase your chances of obtaining that role.
The best way to find out exactly what a potential employer could find is to conduct a search yourself. Filter through at least the first few pages of a Google search, in doing this you will familiarise yourself and be more prepared to address any possible surprises before they crop up. Additionally, this will provide you with good key insight into your online appearance in order for you to begin any digital refining for your professional profiles.
Whilst you may love that holiday snap of you with your favourite tipple in hand, it certainly won’t scream out ‘ hire me I’m a professional’. A big no-no for professional profile pictures and cover photos would be showing you drinking alcohol or obviously drunk, pouting in swimwear, loafing about taking a selfie, or most obviously, doing anything tasteless, vulgar or offensive. Simply having a decent profile picture of yourself online is imperative and a headshot on a plain background or a business setting photo of you in action would be ideal.
As you are most likely aware, the social media giants; Facebook, Instagram and Twitter frequently change their settings therefore even if you think your privacy settings are up to date things could have recently changed, along with your options and you may not know it.
On Facebook, the easiest way to check what other people can see is the ‘view profile as’ button which is hidden in the bottom right-hand corner of your cover photo.
Again conduct a search and filter through your Instagram profile to check back on any pictures that could appear compromising to a potential hirers eye. If there are such pictures, and you don’t want to delete them, switch your settings to private.
You can download your Twitter feed to your archive by going to your settings. It has a record of every single tweet you’ve sent out, which you will be able to sieve through to delete any tweets you wouldn’t want your boss or colleagues to see. This includes any previous complaints or grumbles about any of your previous companies. Nothing will ring an alarm and leave a bad taste in an employer’s mouth more than company criticism and bitter employees. Companies might also conduct their own online search of your various channels to find out if you’ve adhered to company confidentiality agreements.
You can also make your profile private by ‘protecting your profile’. This allows you to control who is following you and hence, who can see your tweets.
All recruiters will check a candidates LinkedIn profile whenever they apply for a role, commonly looking for further insight into your career. Therefore, it’s vital to ensure your profile is as current and professional as possible.
Review your professional experience to make sure that all your job responsibilities, achievements and qualifications are up to date. Going forward, it’s also worth considering adding information regularly as this is far easier to do when fresh in your mind, rather than in mammoth quantity when looking for a new position.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning any volunteering experience and if you can speak any additional languages – these could be the very qualities that will set you apart from other candidates when it comes to hiring.
