How To Optimize Your Online Presence (For Job Hunts). Everybody is connected, and it’s as easy as pie for companies and their recruiters to run a quick search on their prospective employees to find out about their attitudes toward work and assess their suitability for the job.
As a matter-of-fact, Dan Schawbel from Forbes goes as far as to suggest that our online presence will replace our resume in the near future. Given such an emerging trend, it is high time we become cognizant of what the Internet has to say about us. In the midst of a job-switch, it’s good practice to keep your online profiles presentable and optimized for your future employment opportunities.
You never know if a headhunter has ever considered you as a potential candidate for an attractive post but decided not to because of your less-than-appealing online presence. Follow these 10 simple and practical tips on managing your social profiles to make them resume-ready and increase your odds of getting the interview.
1. Stay Well-Versed With Changes In Privacy
If you’ve read my earlier post on 5 Facebook Privacy Settings You Should Know and Facebook & Your Privacy: Why It Matters, you would’ve realize by now how important it is to keep abreast of revisions to privacy policies on Facebook and other social network sites.
These policies determine how searchable your profile is and how you can restrict access to your postings. You will need to enable your potential employers to search for your profile page effortlessly. Be wary of what you make public (and accessible by them) to accurately portray you in the manner you want.
A Buggy Issue
Apart from such privacy settings, it is also necessary to make a conscious effort to stay informed about existing bugs and get them fixed before they leave you vulnerable to any privacy leak. It would be disastrous if all your private photos and postings were available to your prospective employers during a routine background search.
Facebook users have not forgotten the recent Facebook privacy glitch late last year when private messages that weren’t supposed to be public had seemingly appeared publicly on their wall page.
2. Be Public
Access restrictions aside, stay public in general. It makes sense to say that you wouldn’t have any online presence if you don’t appear online! Besides robbing your chance to impress recruiters, a blocked social network profile may also raise a red flag, giving the impression that you have things to hide.
