Sunday, December 19, 2010

Watch out for Social Media Blunders

Use social media sites every waking hour and tell everyone of your every single move or thought? If so, you just might find yourself in employment trouble if you vocalize too much on social media sites. Many employers have gone to using the internet sites as a screening forum for potential job candidates.
It is now “the norm” to see if applicants turn up on social networking sites, after doing the more traditional “Google” of someone’s name. If you are a job seeker and there is anything on your social site that you don’t want an employer to see, time to get rid of it! Don’t be self-assured in believing there is such a thing as having one “confidential” site and one “visible/open to anyone” site. Today’s technology allows almost anyone the capability to view anyone’s information through an electronically connected “semi-detective agency” network. Tiny and large bits of information alike can be amassed as quickly as you can raise a detective’s monocle to your eye.
Think about what you say or text to “connections”
As much as a good physical impression, an applicant’s overall “perceived” abilities or inabilities are equally as important. If you text in slang or use profanity on your social site, the repercussions could result in long-term case of unemployment. If you constantly boast of your uproarious weekends, repercussions could be a “not employable” status. Although you may only have a few persons within your social network, each one of those could have a hundred or even more connections.
In today’s media driven society, the only scrupulous social networking a true job seeker can do is to make minimal non-offensive entries on to their personal page, network to find potential employers on a “professional” social networking level, and play enjoyable solitary social media games while waiting for the phone to ring with a job offer.

© Copyright Vet2Work/Naturallysilver 2010-11. No re-publication of this article is permitted without express permission. This is an excerpt from "Successful Career Moves" by C.A. Stapleton. About the author: C.A. Stapleton, A.S., B.S., M.B.A., is an experienced, published professional career consultant, mentor, and résumé/ biographical writer.