Beware what you post!

Saw a couple of interesting, related posts this weekend about social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace etc.) and job hunting.  I’d group the concerns into three areas:

First, be careful what you post about the job hunt itself.  If you’re updating your status to “just had a great interview” or “just interviewed a terrible company” you may be broadcasting to a much wider audience than you think.  Facebook, for example, recently changed the way that your information is shared (and many people clearly aren’t aware of this).  Yes, you can limit who can see your information if you’ve got everything set right, but it’s harder to protect than you think.  For example, Facebook applications that you use (like FamilyLink) have access to pretty much everything – again, unless you set the application access to limit this.  So, just assume your prospective employer can see your status.  That way, you can’t go wrong.

Second, be aware that many employers will look you up online…and any factual differences between your profile information and your resume may lead to problems (see related article).  This might lead your prospective employer thinking that perhaps you’re misleading them.  Dates and employers much match.  If your LinkedIn profile has more history than your resume, that may be okay, so long as the part that’s on your resume is the same as the profile.  But date discrepancies, title discrepancies, and employer discrepancies could be killers.  And you may not get a chance to explain.

Third, all of the information you have out there may influence whether you get hired.   This includes your statements of opinion, things you’ve said about prior employers, personal pictures, and, well – everything.  Things that might seem innocuous…like crude jokes you thought were private, to polarizing or political statements (see related article) could easily influence a hiring manager to pass over you.

Here’s what to do:

1. Get your public information in sync with your resume.
2. Purge anything problematic as best you can.  This can be a bit hard…and if you have a lot, you might consider hiring a reputation management firm to help.  I’ve read about one called Reputation Defender, but I can’t vouch for them personally – they’re just an example.
3. Set up your profile preferences (like on Facebook) to limit who can see things.  Here’s a good resource to take you through the steps for Facebook
4. Treat your posts and status messages as if they’re readable by anyone.  It’s just good practice.

Good hunting!