Wednesday 23 September 2015

How your Facebook profile can affect your career prospects

Facebook has gone from strength to strength since it appeared what seems like ages ago and these days even your prospective employers are getting in on the act. With way over a billion regular users worldwide, it is not surprising that most job applicants will probably have a Facebook account. But it may be sound advice to take another look at how your own profile may be perceived before filling out that application form. Here we look a little closer at the new trend that is offering recruiters an invaluable insight as far as weeding out undesirable candidates is concerned. A recent survey taken from over 1,800 HR managers has unearthed some very revealing evidence as far as our social media accounts and job applications are concerned. We’ve also consulted a separate survey taken from 2,000 young people who have social media accounts just to balance this article out.

How is your profile?
We all have seen the evidence of a wild night out or a particularly messy holiday splashed all over a Facebook profile, that’s part of the whole idea of social media after all. Have another look at your timeline and see if you can find any evidence of this type of shenanigans before your next recruiter stumbles onto it. Nobody is an angel but surely some things are better kept private? Especially as far as finding that killer job is concerned.

What they don’t want to see
Just imagine if you were an accountancy recruiter or HR professional in an accountancy firm and you had 4 or 5 Facebook profiles in front of you. It could be that the applicants are all very similar but where one or more of the applicants have plenty of photos showing him or her quaffing alcohol without any issues, would you offer this person an interview ahead of the other applicants? We know what the answer is likely to be, so why risk the chance of ruining your opportunity just because your Facebook profile is a bit over the top?

Important statistics from the survey
In terms of figures to back up these claims, please take a look at these because you may just be a little shocked to discover how high some of them are:
  •         90% of employers admit to checking Facebook profiles for vetting purposes
  •         55% of recruiters have decided against hiring applicants after checking their social media profiles
  •         22% of social media users aged between 14-25 will post pictures of their nights out onto their profiles
  •         24% have no privacy settings on their social media profiles

Some tips that you may need to know
Okay, nobody enjoys looking at a boring social media profile, so how can you maintain the status quo whilst still staying in the market for some attractive job roles? Simple, all you need to do is take a closer look at those privacy settings and start putting them into action. You can easily tweak them so that only your Facebook friends can see your updates and that will help a lot. But whilst you are at it, why don’t you go through your profile and get rid of those dodgy updates as well? Swearing, anything sexual and of course the booze related photos aren’t really that important are they? You could always open up a new account with an alias if you absolutely must be seen as the party animal, but do it sooner rather than later. From our own experience as a Public Practice Accountancy recruitment agency, we know that our own clients will look at social media profiles and actually include this as a vital part of their own selection process.


You could also delete any inactive social media accounts because your prospective employers could also find these and who knows what you thought was cool two or three years ago? Think about your professional future, take care of your social media accounts and you could soon land that dream job you always wanted.


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