It’s a known fact that employers like to see the social media of their candidates. While they are aware that these are largely personal profiles, where candidates share photos from their own lives and posts about their personal lives, they do want to see what kind of person is entering their company. This can often show them the candidates intelligence, qualifications, truth about their qualities and many other things. They also want to see if you are involved in any illegal activity like drugs, crime of any kind or bullying.
They also want to see if you are drinking too much and so on.
However, what is the most important things that employers can find out about their candidates?
Employers don’t come to your social media profiles to see your language specifically but they do take notice of that. If you swear a lot on your social media, say bad things about other people or talk about inappropriate things, your employers will surely see you as unprofessional and a poor choice for their company.
That’s the last thing they want to see. Poor spelling and grammar are determinants too. Sometimes more employers decline candidates because of this than talking about guns or drugs.
“When I see swearing of any kind, I instantly see that person in a wrong way. I know we all swear sometimes but social media profiles should be used in a smarter way, not as an outlet for our every thought,” says Zara Ginger, a digital marketer at 1Day2Write.com and Britstudent.com.
Your social media profile will likely contain a ton of information on your qualifications and education. This is what the employer will most likely be looking at, most notably the truthfulness of this information. They will observe different things about this information – because you can lie about this on your social media too. But there will be other people in your friend list with the same qualifications.
Your posts show just how creative you are with using social media. You can do various things with your images, music you post an regular posts so get creative and show any employer just what you can do. This is probably not as important as other things but you should take care of that as well.
“This is another thing that will be really important. The employer will be able to see what causes you care for, what your mission in life is, which brands you like, which pages you like and so on. All of this will
be good at showing them how well you match their corporate culture,” says Thomas Fuller, a tech recruiter at Writemyx.com and Australia2write.com.
All of these things together will be important in showing them that you are a match for their culture.
Your social media is a reflection of your personal life. That being said, it’s no one’s business to pry – but if you just leave everything out there for the world to see, they will form an opinion based on that. This means that pictures of you drinking heavily or using drugs, the sexual context of any kind and so on will bother your employers and deteriorate your chances of getting hired.
Make sure that you’ve cleared all of this before your interview. Any mean or bad comments should go as well, drunken posts too and so on.
Your social media should be a representation of who you really are. However, it also shows people who you really are – and that can be too much in many cases. In this case, particularly, there are some things that you might want to keep for yourself. Maintain your social media profiles and make sure that they are something your employers will want to see. Otherwise, it might prove extremely hard for you to find a job. Be who you are, but make sure that that person is desirable for hire.
Martha Jameson works as a content editor and proofreader. She was a web designer and a manager before she became a writer for Academic Brits and OriginWritings. Now she likes to create content that will help people find their perfect jobs without a fuss.