Social Media Is Good and Bad For Your Job Search
At a recent Vistage meeting of about 20 CEOs we were discussing using social media as a way to find people. One of the CEOs indicated it is also a great way to eliminate people.
I wasn’t overly surprised to learn that many hadn’t thought about social media for hiring, but I was surprised to learn that many don’t use it as a screening tool. Obviously, after hearing the story from the one CEO, most will reconsider.
Apparently they were in the process of interviewing a candidate for a sales position, and like most hiring processes it takes a couple of weeks to get through all of the interviews. Over this couple of weeks the company started tracking this person’s Tweets on Twitter and looked up the candidate’s profile picture.
OOPS major faux pas.
Apparently as it was relayed in the meeting, this person’s picture was – let’s just say not professional, and the tweets were completely inappropriate as viewed by the company. The language was foul, the topics discussed rather vulgar, and for a professional sales person raised a lot of red flags.
The company was scared of a sexual harassment lawsuit and how this candidate would communicate with employees and customers. Not to mention what customers would think if they saw this person’s profile picture and followed them on Twitter.
Social media is a double edged sword. I follow Twitter on a regular basis, and I am surprised at how many people looking for a job use inappropriate language, brag about being lazy, tweet about how glad they are about not working, or demonstrate a lack of willingness to be employed. They come across as wanting a job but not willing to work. This is not what a future employer is seeking.
Take care to ensure that you manage your social media properly and professionally during your job search. Others are watching and listening to you.
If this was helpful to you, it will probably be helpful to others. Please consider passing it on so they too can benefit. You might add it to your Facebook page, update it on your LinkedIn status, email it to friends or to your network. We all need to help out. One tip can make a huge difference to someone.
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I welcome your thoughts and comments.
Brad Remillard
Tags: Career Mistakes, Interviewing Mistakes, Job Search LinkedIn Discussion Group, Job Search Social Media, LinkedIn Job Search, Linkedin Job Search Expert
Job Search Mistakes, On-line Social Networking | bradremillard January 6, 2010
About the Author
Brad Remillard is a founding Partner of IMPACT Hiring Solutions, co-author of "You're NOT the Person I Hired", and "This is NOT the Position I Accepted". Brad is an award-winning international speaker, retained executive recruiter, and expert on hiring and retaining top talent, and executive job search.
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By Dave Kinnear, January 6, 2010 @ 2:33 pm
This is right on (as usual) Brad. I too have been amazed at how people forget some basics. What you post/tweet is around “forever,” and everyone including future employers, colleagues, present employers, friends and enemies alike are able to read what we say and post.
I hope people get that this is serious and can have long term affects – good and/or bad!
Thanks for keeping this in front of us.