Social Media Profiles: tips for job seekers

As a job seeker, you may be wondering if recruiters look at social media profiles?

The answer is, most do.

Here at ETC, we’ve been told by our large pool of employers that yes they do. This is consistent with a 2018 CareerBuilder survey which showed that 70% of recruiters look at social media profiles to screen candidates during the hiring process.

You may think of it as an invasion of privacy, but if you have your profile set to public then anyone can view it, so you should consider making yours private. Or if you want to keep it public – then there are some important things to be mindful of like how your social media accounts are portraying you as a person and what are they telling an employer about you as a prospective employee?

If you’re currently searching for jobs and putting your name out there, it’s time to give your social media profiles a spring clean:

• Review your profile photos – make sure you have a respectable photo displayed. Avoid things like duck face selfies or images of you participating in activities that could be looked as unfavourable to a prospective employer. Remember that even if you have changed your account to private, your profile pictures can still be seen by the public.
• Review your biography statements – this is a great opportunity to talk about what you’re passionate about in life and who you are as a person. Best not to have any negative or derogatory statements in this.
• Review some of your recent posts – check for spelling and grammar mistakes, ensure that you aren’t defaming any people or businesses and remove any swear words or comments that could be offensive or embarrassing.

More Tips

• Search your social media accounts without being logged in or on public view to see what a potential employer can see.
• Change your settings so that what you intend to stay private stays private if that’s what you want.
• Think smart about what you are being tagged in and what you are commenting on, if the page you are commenting on is public it doesn’t matter what your privacy settings are, it will be public!

Consider having 2 profiles:

A professional profile which is set to public and can essentially work as a digital Resume for you
A personal profile which is set to private where you are only sharing with your friends and family

LinkedIn—a site for professional networking.

• Connect and network with other professionals.
• Get advice from experts in your industry.
• Find jobs and new business opportunities.
• Watch a video to help you get started with LinkedIn.

Facebook—a social networking site for individuals and businesses.

• Create a personal profile, share photos and videos, connect with other users as friends to exchange messages.
• Ask your network for help finding a job, let them know what you are looking for.
• Follow businesses and associations to keep up to date with industry news and events, including information about careers and upcoming jobs.

Twitter—a microblogging site, for quick, short updates in real time. Messages are known as ‘tweets’.

• Use hashtags (a way of categorising Tweets) such as #jobs, or #jobadvice.
• Follow businesses you’d like to work for, or recruitment agencies for their latest stories, ideas, opinions and news.

Blogs—online articles or ‘posts’ that are usually organised around a particular topic. Search for blogs published by individuals or businesses.

• Get current tips and advice about job seeking from recruitment companies and agencies.
• Engage with authors through comments and discussion threads.

On LinkedIn and Facebook, you can join groups or pages that are related to your career interests, and some of these groups even post job opportunities or shout outs looking for new candidates.

Here’s a great article by Open Colleges on Social Media’s role in your Job Search >>

So you’ve found some jobs to apply for, now what?

Is your Resume up-to-date? Here’s some tips and templates to make sure you have a Resume that will get noticed >>

Make sure you prepare a Cover Letter to send along with your Resume when applying for jobs. Here’s a guide to help you write a winning cover letter >>

Does the job advertisement have a Selection Criteria? Don’t worry because we have a helpful guide for you on how to address selection criteria >>

Sources:

ETC JobLab Training manual
Queensland Government website