Social Media: Employers and Professionalism

Hopefully by now those of you on social media know that employers and other people looking to do work with you are looking at your presence on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

I found an interesting article on Mashable social media traps that people should beware of.  Believe it or not, the picture of you with alcohol (provided you aren’t doing your best Prince Harry in Vegas impersonation) isn’t as frowned upon as poor spelling.  In fact four other things were worse (in recruiters eyes) than picture of you with a beer. Drug use, sexual posts/tweets, profanity, and poor spelling were worse than pictures of alchohol consumption.

Other things that are considered a negative are:

• Political posts/tweets
• Overly religious posts/tweets
• References to Burning Man festival (anybody have any idea as to why?)

So if they are snooping around, what do you want them to see besides a blank page with your picture, indicating you have locked everything down like Fort Knox?  According to Mashable, recruiters want to see membership in professional organizations and volunteering/donating to charity.  Obviously locking down certain content and making other content openly available is key and requires some careful attention to Facebook, Twitter, etc. security controls. 

What I found to be the most interesting tidbit of information was one of the tips Mashable provided in this piece.  It suggested that people should start including links to their LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles on their resume so that recruiters don’t accidentally mistake somebody else’s profile with yours.  Huh…I never thought about that.  I can see where that could be a big problem, especially with common names and in professions that aren’t as small and tightly knit as librarians. 

In the past it has been all about locking your social network down so nobody except for those few approved people can see it.  Now there are suggestions that not only do you unlock positive activities for all to view but you actually include your profile information to recruiters.  Have we turned a corner in social media?  Is it now assumed that everybody has a social media presence? Do those who don’t have one or have one so locked down that it isn’t easily viewed run the risk of being mistaken for somebody else or possibly hiding something?

What are your thoughts?