September 23, 2013
They’re watching you!
View your personal profile as your professional profile – what is visible to your friends is visible to employers, clients and anyone that has the potential to influence your career and salary.
Understand how much people want to know about you
It’s as easy as Googling your name to find out anything about you that exists on the internet, images, web search are just a start. Have you ever commented on a blog, have an old profile on Myspace that you haven’t edited in years, but is full of swear words and inappropriate music? Delete it. If somebody is smart, they will want to know who they are doing business with. You don’t have to apply for a job for someone to want to know who you are. Your name could be recommended to a recruiter, a senior manager or anyone hiring, or somebody looking to use you as a service provider – they want to know everything. LinkedIn goes without saying, but make sure you do a search of yourself and REALLY look.
Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation
Spell check/ Autocorrect comes as standard on PCs/Macs/Tablets etc, so why have a spelling mistake. No matter who you are – CEO, MD etc, you will still look ridiculous if someone wanting to work with your company then sees that you cannot spell ‘professional’ when describing yourself. And Grammar, well let me just say, I have searched for executive roles and found it very difficult to take someone seriously when they write sentences that contain the word ‘our’ instead of ‘are’ and ‘who’s’ instead of ‘whose’.
It can be a rule
More and more companies are putting together social media profile policies for their staff. This includes the government, charities and private companies. Some are also requesting staff to use monitoring tools which ensures you know what is being looked at and by whom (demographic potentially).
The Job Seeker
The most important time to make sure your social profile is perfect is when you are actively job seeking, but remember, even if you are not really looking for a new job – there is still potential for the best job ever to land in your inbox IF your social profile reflects what you do accurately and in the best light. As soon as a CV reaches the recruiter, they will Google your name, create a profile of you in their mind and then if applicable they will call you. Your CV is only a taster of you and your social network gives more of an insight in to your skills and this will encourage or discourage someone to call you based on those factors. Recruiters are starting to be more effective in direct sourcing, this is a recruiter having a vacancy and finding the candidate themselves, not through agencies etc – the way they do this – using the internet – so make sure you are there and looking good!
© Gavin Llewellyn “My social networks” Photo. Attribution 2.0 Generic