Monday, July 19, 2010

Social Media and Job Hunting go Hand-in-Hand



I have the privilege of being able to read and respond to a lot of job seeker’s complaints and concerns. It is kind of interesting, at times, to see what is important to job seekers and also to see what they do not understand about the continuing changes and challenges faced by those who are unemployed.

Over the weekend I received an email from a job seeker who was ranting and raving about the fact that she had to be concerned about her Facebook and other social media accounts. She indicated that she did not agree with any employer going into her personal accounts as the accounts have nothing to do with the job being posted. She was concerned as to the “why” of this phenomenon. She felt that they had no right to do this.

Unfortunately, for her, social media sites are public sites, not private sites and she has no expectations of privacy if she is going to use social media sites. Employers know that they can find a job seeker on one or more social media sites and can get a very good idea about the person’s character and what is important to them.

So, if you are a job seeker who maintains one or more social media pages and you have been job searching for quite some time, you might want to take another look at your social sites. Look at them from the view of an employer. Are they telling the right story about you? Is the language vulgar? Are the photos on your site something that would embarrass you?

The world of social media is taking over a lot of places in our life and the job hunting market is just another item on that list. If you are a serious job seeker, take a serious look at these sites and clean them up, if necessary. Whether you agree or not, social media is changing the way we are viewed by the outside world and social media and job hunting do go hand-in-hand.

By: Nancy Anderson, Staff Writer

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