Job Seekers – Clean up Your Facebook!

You’ve heard this from parents, career counselors, and advice columns but according to a data from CareerBuilder, you’re not following the advice—at least not enough.

The study, which included around 2,100 people in charge of hiring, found that 39 percent use social media to research job candidates—a 37 percent increase from last year.

43 Percent of hiring managers who currently research candidates on social media find content that caused them to hire somebody else. That’s up 9 percent from last year.

Of the managers who passed on a potential hire, here are the percentages of managers who found a particular type of content while searching:

• 50 Percent found provocative/inappropriate photos/info.
• 48 Percent- Drug use.
• 33 Percent- Bad mounted previous employer.
• 30 Percent- Bad communication skills.
• 28 Percent- Made racial, sexist, or discriminatory religious comments.
• 24 Percent- Lied about qualifications

Helpful Advice

Every advice column should have some actionable tips to put into practice today. Here you go:

• If the picture was taken in a bar with you holding a drink, it doesn’t belong on Facebook FB or any other social media outlet.
• If your selfie involves a skin-tight, barely there party dress, regardless of how good you think you look, text it to friends, don’t post it.
• Don’t talk about work on social media unless it’s positive.
• “To”, “too”, and “two” aren’t interchangeable and not all words that end with “s” have an apostrophe. (And stop using text language.)
• Your Facebook friends don’t want to read your political opinions. Your potential employer definitely doesn’t want to read your thoughts on Obama unless you’re applying for a job at Politico.

What should it look like?

If we’re going to look at what’s not working, what will impress the hiring manager on your profile? Here's what hiring managers reported as causing them to gain a favorable view of the candidate.

• Conveyed a professional image.
• Social media profile gave the hiring manager a good sense of their personality.
• Showed a wide range of interests.
• Showed creativity, had strong communication skills.
• Positive comments from others.

Do this Now

If you’re in the job market, or have prospects of a move up the career ladder, go to each of your social media profiles and delete anything that falls into the above red flags. Next, change your privacy settings to display only what you would want a potential employer to see.

Make your social media profiles portfolios of who you are as a professional. It’s acceptable and even encouraged to post pictures of family or updates of positive events in your life. Did you volunteer at a charity event? Post a picture but as a general rule, keep minors who aren’t part of your family out of the images.

Comment on the seminar you attended, the day you spent with another professional in your field, or a career oriented book you read. If you would say it in an interview, saying it in social media is acceptable.

Now, go clean up your accounts.