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7 Social Media Rules You Should be Following When Looking for a Job

In the past, keeping your personal life and your professional life separate was simple principle that most people followed. The common wisdom was that mixing personal and professional lives could affect how you are seen by others in your industry and your prospects for success.

Now, with social media being all-pervasive, keeping that separation is much, much harder. Employers, potential employers and colleagues can all send a friend request to your personal Facebook page, see your political views on Twitter and track your connections on LinkedIn.

Instead of shrinking from social media during a job search, you should acknowledge it and even use it to your advantage.

Recognize the importance of social media connections

Professional relationships and networks are incredibly helpful in everyone’s career. Even though you might take a lax attitude toward social media, your relationships can be severely impacted if people see you post content they strongly disagree with. Professional relationships can be essential to career success; because of this, respect these connections and keep them professional.

Use a content strategy

Adopt a ‘content strategy’ for your social media profiles. Under this strategy, you would only post content that you have carefully considered and deemed not to be offensive or unprofessional.

While this strategy might make you feel inauthentic, it does allow you to participate on social media without undercutting your professionalism or risking your work reputation.

Consider an alternative name for your profile

While social media sites do have measures in place to prevent imposter profiles, that doesn’t mean you can’t use a nickname or variation on you given name. Using a custom name for your profile will make it more difficult for professional connections to find you, thus giving you more control over who you connect with online.

Using an alternative name will also make harder for potential employers to judge you based on your online activity.

Use privacy settings

If you have a personal account you want to stay personal, set all privacy settings for that profile at the highest setting. Having every one of your accounts very private makes it seem like you have something to hide.

A private account is not failproof, however. You should still be cautious about what you post there.

Avoid bragging

Social media is a wonderful way to show off career accomplishments. However, try to avoid bragging. Always be humble and thankful for all you’ve achieved.

Use proper grammar and spelling

This one’s no-brainer. The occasional misspelled word isn’t going to ruin your career, but posts filled with flaws are not going to flatter you when potential employers come calling.

Don’t talk about looking for a new job

If you’re currently employed, you’ll want to avoid posting about being frustrated with your current job or looking for a new one. News of your job search could result in negative repercussions for you at your current place of employment

At Career Concepts, we help job seekers with everything from social media strategy to resume writing. Please contact us today to find out how we can accelerate your job search.

Blog published date

Jul 31, 2018
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