Last week, an old school
friend send a message on Facebook to several people in HR to know whether
someone’s presence on social media would have an impact on their job search. Within
an hour there were several responses ranging from no impact at all to someone
who checked every possible channel to gather information.
In this digital time,
your online presence and the impact it may have on your professional life is a
hot topic. Research shows that most companies will check your social media
profile prior to hiring you.
Contrary to what you
may think, we are not looking for the juicy details about your life. I’m not
really that interested in what you have done over the weekend.
What I do look for is a glimpse of your personality.
What I do look for is a glimpse of your personality.
I don’t know about
you, but I catch myself very often quickly checking LinkedIn prior to meeting
someone or when a name gets mentioned in a conversation. Who is this person,
who do they know that I know as well and what do they look like.
Consequently, your LinkedIn
profile can serve as a strong supporter of your personal brand. So use it to
highlight your strengths and what you have to offer. Avoid the typos and use a
picture that presents you in a favourable light.
When it comes to
Facebook, I usually don’t check candidate profiles. But let’s face, all privacy
discussions put aside, if you don’t want the world to know, don’t share it on
Facebook. You can use privacy settings to shield off your personal life but
through sharing or tagging, information that you don’t want publicly displayed
may still reach a large audience.
Twitter is a different
thing. A lot of people use it to voice an opinion. There is nothing wrong with
having a strong opinion about a subject but beware of the disadvantages this
may have. Your current or future employer may not have the same point of view.
When it comes down to
managing social media to grow your personal brand, most of you will closely
monitor what you put on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But beware of
the less obvious presence that you have online: comments you make on news site,
personal blogs that you write about your family, funky you tube videos from your rockband… But it can also be someone
with the same name who presents a totally different picture than what you have
in mind.
This type of
information has the very bad habit of popping up at the most inconvenient time.
Therefor it is a good idea to Google yourself from time to time to check what a
search will reveal.
To conclude, social
media is here to stay and it has an impact on your professional life. So beware
of your digital footprint and manage it with the same attention as you manage
your real-life relationships.
If you want me to tell
you what your social media profile reveals from a headhunter point of view, don’t
hesitate to contact me.
I look
forward to hearing from you,
Isabel
Through a
personalized and tailor-made approach, Ingenium Executive Search aspires to
assist you in attracting the right talent that matches the DNA of your company
Check out
our website http://www.ingenium-search.be
Follow me
on Twitter @IngeniumSearch
