It’s a fact, we’re fully engaged in the digital age, and its effects have already made lasting impressions on the employment market. Long gone are the days of CVs written upon paper, with letters of recommendation literally being letters and most importantly, there being much more of you on the internet for interested employers to search up. While this does sound a little bit scary, this has been the status quo for quite some time – in actuality, with social media usage being on the uptick for at least a decade, does it come as a surprise that around 39% of employers conduct social media background checks on potential candidates?
It’s a practice that, whether we like it or not, we’re going to have to get used to – so why not make something advantageous about it? It’s statistically very likely that at least one employer will try some social media sluethery on you, so why not give them something worth finding online?
Our Hunterskill tips this month are all around tidying up your online image, and turning your digital presence into a professional portfolio – so without further ado, let’s get started on some social media spring cleaning!
First things first
You really should know that the whole concept of an employer doing amateur candidate screening, in the eyes of the law, is really not smiled upon. In fact, the very topic has been known as the foundation for some sizeable lawsuits against some major companies. The truth is, most information that can be gleaned from your social media presence is technically ‘out of bounds’ for employers to base hiring decisions upon… but when has the law ever stopped anyone?
Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all the time, and our estimation is that it’ll only increase as time goes on. Why risk big when in fact it can be so easy to rectify any social media blunders, and more importantly use it to your advantage.
Let’s assess the situation
As we’ve established, while employers really shouldn’t be Googling their candidates, they’re very likely to do so. More importantly, is that they know that you know. In many cases, the reason your name is plugged into a search engine is to check if you are keeping a watchful eye over your online persona.
If an employer notices that you have taken no effort to tidy up your digital track record, it may reflect badly on your chances of employment, no matter what the content is. Fundamentally, employers want to see that you’re actively competing against other candidates and taking responsibility for yourself. In other words, online reputation is business reputation.
So here’s our first tip, and it’s a simple one:
Google yourself.
Okay, it’s a little bit more than just that. Make sure you are using a web browser you are not logged into your socials with, using a guest account or using Chrome’s Incognito Mode is easier than logging out of everything.
What we’re trying to do is get an accurate representation of how your socials look from an outsider’s perspective looking in – it’s easy to construct a narrative when you are the one who has curated your social media profiles, the question is how does it read to someone who has never met you?
Try some variations on your name as well – do you have any nicknames? Try cycling through some of those, including middle names also. Past schools, universities, previous employers? Searching Google is free, get exhaustive with it, because you never really know what’s been put on the web about you.
Maybe enlist the help of a friend or family member – it’s very easy to see your activities online as fine, but that’s because it was you who was there. You’d be surprised what a fresh pair of eyes, and a new perspective can notice.
Take No Chances
If anything about your social media presence is taken the wrong way by an employer, rightly so or not, chances are you won’t have the platform to explain yourself. This is one of those situations where it’s probably best to be very liberal with your vetting process.
The question arises though – what are we looking out for, and how do we deal with it?
A quick and easy fix to many ‘online oopsies’, and also a good one if you don’t actually want to have to delete any posts on your personal accounts is to set your socials to private.
You are still allowed to have fun on the internet, but your potential employer, or even worse potential clients, don’t need to see the messy aftermath of Tequila Tuesday in 2014…
Once you have your main personal accounts (Instagram and Facebook are the usual suspects) in check, time to take a little bit of a deep dive. We’ve all been on the internet long enough to post some silly things and to be honest, you probably don’t remember half of it.
Take the time to look through the accounts that might be tied to your Facebook, Gmail or old e-mail addresses are going to be the main culprits. Did you visit many blog hosting sites, or forums back in the day?
Ask yourself, ‘how well has this part of the internet aged?’ and ‘do I really need this blog comment to represent who I am now?’ If the answer to these questions is ‘badly and no’, wipe it. It’s probably even good form just to make a habit of cleaning up your old internet footprint – sweeping your breadcrumb trail on the web can help with more than just employability these days!
What now?
So you’ve had a scrub, and you’ve exhausted every avenue – well done! The question is, what now? Here are a couple of things to get you started.
At Hunterskill, we are really all for mock-interview scenarios – ask a friend to do a deep dive to see if you might have missed anything – this will be incredibly helpful, and will also help understand the perspective of an interviewer, which can both demystify and give you confidence in your interview.
The next big step is to make your online presence work in your favour – think ‘online portfolio’. If your interviewer is going to look up your online activities, give them something worth finding.
As much as we’d like to delve deeper into making the web work for you, we’re going to have to ask for you to wait until next month – as for right now, we’re here staying busy matching perfect candidates with their dream jobs.
Take a look at our Jobs board, and upload your CV to see what we can do for you.
We hope you found something useful on this month’s Tips & Tricks and as always,
Good luck!