I have to confess that I’m fairly indifferent when it comes to my personal Facebook page. I’m not an avid poster of personal news and I can go weeks without checking it out (I’m currently on a 90 day Facebook detox). Whether you are an avid user, or like me, fairly indifferent, what most people don’t realise is that your Facebook page is an important tool during your job search strategy.
According to CareerBuilder’s annual social media recruitment study in 2015, the number of employers taking to social media to research applicants has risen to 52% (this is just the average, with the figure rising to 90% or more in the tech. sector). This figure is continuing to increase across all sectors and will probably become standard recruitment operating procedures. Likewise Recruiters also use social media to assess candidates and headhunt talent.
Now the reason employers look at your Facebook page, is that they are trying to find out information that can be used to assess whether you will be a good candidate or not. No matter how blooming marvellous you are at work, if you have provocative or inappropriate photographs, have information about your binge drinking or drug habit, have bad-mouthed a previous employer, or posted discriminatory and unsavoury comments, you can kiss your career goodbye.
Now these are the obvious crosses against your career, but what about unconscious biases? Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups, which can have a negative or positive consequence for you.
So with this reality at hand, you have 2 options:
Lock Facebook down
I’m amazed at how people fail to realise how public such sites as Facebook are. As a complete stranger (employer/recruiter), I will be able to look at your profile and scroll through your content, unless you have locked down your Facebook page. Please LOCK IT down, by making your content private.
That is – go to the privacy settings on Facebook and ensure that you have restricted the people that can look at your posts.
On Facebook, under the Privacy Settings and Tools heading, you will see three bold questions:
Who can see my stuff?
Who can contact me?
Who can look me up?
Organise your settings so you can carefully control who sees your content. That way you control your personal life.
Promote Yourself
The other alternative is to actively promote what you offer via social media, including your Facebook page. If your Facebook profile portrays you as professional, creative, an effective communicator, a committed community member etc. (you get my gist), then maybe you can think about leveraging Facebook to push your individual brand!
Personally, I think strangers checking out my private Facebook page are an intrusion on my privacy and I don’t even have any skeletons in the closet. But with so many open Facebook pages out there – it is an open invitation for employers and recruiters to check you out, so they can improve their decision making on job candidates.
When we all signed up to Facebook, we signed up to a public space. So either lock it down, or milk it, so it ultimately benefits your career.
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