Dec
22
Danger - Social Networking Can Seriously Damage Your Career Prospects
Filed Under Your Career | Leave a Comment
The growth of social networking sites such as Facebook has been phenomenal over the last few years and now anyone who is anyone needs a Facebook site. But be careful what you actually display on your pages, because a potential employer (including representatives from a recruitment agency) could look you up and if they don’t like what they see, well you will not get the job they have on offer.
So it may be tempting to write up about how drunk you were, how you lost all your money, woke up in a strange flat (or worse) but the reality is that many employers actively seek out Facebook pages and they may make assumptions based on the information that you have provided. If you come across as irresponsible and someone who cannot be trusted or who may even have a drink problem, well that will not help your career at all. It undermines your CV and you wont even get any interviews.
No one expects you to be a saint and everyone enjoys a laugh, but any comments that may be viewed as derogatory, racist or sexist etc will not endear you to potential employers: it will actively turn them off.
You should also be careful not to post any comments that could bring their firm into disrepute, so always stick to a kind of fun approach, but nothing that could land you into trouble.
Increasingly people forget that the internet can come back to haunt them. So you may be a trouble free student now, but when you are a graduate, looking for a responsible career, it is still possible that some pages could paint a negative picture of you, even if you are not incredibly responsible and respectable.
The best way to deal with Facebook or other social networking sites is to treat them as a bit of fun, but don’t post anything which you would be embarrassed if employers read it. Be restrained and be mindful of the fact that Facebook pages may appear on search engines for many years to come.
