Can Your Facebook Page Affect Your Job Search?
In the modern day it is not odd to see someone browsing their Facebook page via their computer or mobile phone. However, although Facebook is by no means a horrid thing to be a part of – it can take your attention away from things that you should seriously be thinking about.
It’s one thing to use your Facebook page to share pictures of your family or simply write down some of your thoughts, but if your Facebook page were to catch the attention of a job recruiter you definitely would not want your “overly personal” information being seen. Some of the things on your Facebook page may not be essential for helping you land a job or an interview with a prestigious company.
Whatever you post on your Facebook page is a clear reflection of your maturity level and your level of discretion. If you lack the proper judgment to censor things that may be seen inappropriate on your Facebook page, obviously you will turn a few highly impressionable employers off.
It may surprise you that there were actually a significant amount of employers that perused the Facebook pages of prospective applicants. A survey was actually conducted in 2006, regarding employers who used social media pages in order to find out a little bit more about their applicants. 11% of employers in 2006 actually admitted to going on a few social media sites in order to find out some information on the person applying for a position with their company.
On CareerBuilder more than 63% of the hiring managers that were seeking out employees actually performed a few searches under the prospective employees name in order to find out some information about them. Honestly, if you were applying for the job of your life time, would you want something such as a comment that you transcribed on your Facebook page to get in the way?
Some people believe that with prospective employees being able to judge you by your social media page something should be done to rectify this. However, employees gaining access to your social media pages are by no means an invasion of your privacy. If you are willing to emphasize certain things about yourself via your Facebook page, then you should be more than willing to let anyone gain access to this information.
This is why using language that is appropriate and being friendly (but still holding a high caliber of standards about yourself) is the best thing to do when you are involved in different social media networks. If you would not want your family or someone that is considering you for a job to gain access to certain information on your Facebook page, the information should not be made available to them in the first place!
7 Responses to “Can Your Facebook Page Affect Your Job Search?”
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Clearly, anyone using any social media website- especially Facebook- should be extra aware of the privacy settings granted by the website. Yes, prospective employers can see that you’re on Facebook, but if you’re settings are managed properly, that’s ALL they’ll see.
Nice Post Michael, so many of my older family members never can understand this. They think that you can just setup an account, post anything you want and no one will see it. Clearly a mistake on their part.
Maia and Chris, plenty of folks, young and old, don’t pay attention to the FB privacy settings and think “what’s the big deal?” YOU may not post something offensive to your profile, but one of your friends may… (and you’re tagged!); the settings on their photo album is set to ‘friends of friends’ or (gasp) ‘everyone.’ All of a suddent content you didn’t consent to is showing up in feeds you didn’t intend them to be in.
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