As we all know, most college students are avid users of social media and may have an active Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account. It may be fun to post pics of your wild weekend in Cabo but a prospective employer may not find those photos equally entertaining. It’s critical for college students to make smart choices when it comes to social media since many employers nowadays will attempt to find you on the major social networks before making a hiring decision. There have even been reports of employers actually asking applicants for their Facebook password. Employers want to know a lot more than just your GPA and degrees; they want to know what kind of person you are, your character and the kind of people you associate with. Here are a few tips to help you safeguard your social media accounts.
Don’t Post Anything Questionable
It may sound obvious but don’t post any photos that are questionable, provocative or in bad taste. Partying photos are a bit more “iffy”. Sure, there is nothing wrong with partying but you don’t want future employers to think that you are a party animal that will come to work hungover from the night before. It’s also not a good idea to badmouth previous or current employers on your social media accounts.
Use Your Privacy Settings
Facebook has numerous privacy settings. You can choose to make your profile private from the search engines. Photo albums can also be made private or viewable to friends only. Take the time to explore the privacy settings in order to make sure that it’s how you want it to be.
Google Yourself
Google your legal name, nickname and variations of your name and see what comes up. If there is anything questionable you’ll want to clean it up. One bad habit that many people have is to use their e-mail address handle across the internet when posting on internet forums and signing up for different websites online. If you’ve done so, anyone can simply do a google search for your handle and read all your internet posts if you have a unique handle. It’s much safer to use a completely different nickname every time you sign up for anything that requires a username.
What To Post
If you do decide to keep your Facebook public then by all means list your credentials and the college you went to. For example, if you attended Trident University you may want to mention that you attended an online accredited university.
Whether we agree with it or not, employers are Googling and looking at social media accounts when reviewing job applicants. Why not give yourself the chance at getting hired by cleaning up your social media accounts?
About the Author
Written by Jacqueline Starz - Jacqueline enjoys writing about social media and the internet.