Preparing your social media for your job search
MANAGE YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION
A person can damage their own reputation online. There are others that would gladly do it for them. Information or misinformation on the internet is available to everybody on the planet. With only a laptop, an internet connection and a few keystrokes, an entry can be made that could affect a person several years down the road. For example, you were let go from another job eight years ago. Four years after that you remarked on a social media website that the company had questionable business practices and your boss was an idiot. Although the business is no longer in existence and your former boss is now 2,000 miles away, that ancient and obsolete remark can damage your future with a potential employer. Companies just don’t want to be spoken of in that way. They don’t want their management to be spoken about that way either. The company’s reputation can be tarnished and it isn’t a remote possibility that a potential customer can turn elsewhere because of such utterances.
THE SECURITY CHECK
All large companies maintain a security department. Part of the job description for the security department is to perform background checks on potential employees. This is usually done as a final step immediately before the person comes aboard as a full-time employee. Of course, an arrest or conviction for a computer crime will put the candidate out the revolving door. What many job candidates don’t realize is that companies will also look at the person’s online presence, particularly at their participation in social media. Again, something said or done 4-5 years ago or longer, can come back to haunt the job seeker.
BE PROACTIVE
The job seeker needs to be proactive in online reputation management. Anything posted that might be construed by a potential employer as negative or inappropriate as well as political statements should be deleted if possible. Keeping all of this in mind, be careful of what you post online in the future.