3 Social Media Rules for Your Job Search - Sterling Career Concepts

3 Social Media Rules for Your Job Search 3 Social Media Rules for Your Job Search When using social media, job candidates should keep in mind that hiring companies are scanning social media to collect both good and bad references about candidates. Here are three ways to avoid a professional snafu when it comes to social media: Political and religious references as well as any off-color jokes or comments should be considered off-limits. This is non-negotiable. While job searching, apply the Grandma test to their posts, updates, tweets, and shared pictures. In other words, would you want your grandmother reading or seeing it? If not, its probably not appropriate to be posting online during a job search. Another litmus test is it worth losing a new position over? Is it really that important to post? In this day and age of social media, some people become addicted to posting numerous thoughts and actions, but during a job search, its imperative to keep posts in check. You may want to vent or complain about your search to your Facebook friends, but those are not the type of updates you would want a potential employer reading. Lastly, definitely set your privacy settings to the strictest level, but do not let that give you a false sense of comfort. The internet is still the internet. Posts can still be screen captured, copied, or shared. It is possible to use social media during a job search to reinforce or build up your professional reputation or industry knowledge or to network with colleagues. Post or share articles that relate to your industry or comment on items in the news that relate to your field. With some forethought, you can effectively use social media to improve, not hurt, your standing as a candidate.