In our age of computers, our personal and professional live are being drawn closer every day. There is no better example of how this happens than social media. We start our accounts with the idea of keeping up with old friends, seeing what’s going on around town, or just as a place to store and share pictures- so it is easy to forget that you are also creating an online character reference. As you search for jobs, I recommend that you think of your social media presence as exactly that- a character reference. Imagine that your web presence is meeting a future employer to talk about you- here’s what you don’t want it to say.
Too much about your weekend lifestyle. If you like to go out for drinks all weekend every weekend- that’s fine. If you put your drinking buddy down as your character reference- that’s not fine. It’s okay to have some pictures of you at parties (provided everyone is of legal age), but pictures where you are noticeable drunk have got to go. Same goes for any posts about getting drunk. Imagine your boss calling a character reference and hearing them talk about how wasted you guys got last weekend, and do everything you can to avoid that.
Your political views- I know that right now everyone is posting up a storm about their favorite presidential candidate, and while it is good to be passionate about our democracy, it is not good to alienate future employers. Statistically there are currently more people in America who disagree with your favorite candidate than there are people who agree with you, so any political post is more likely to alienate your potential employer than it is to win them over. Again, imagine that your social media is a phone call- your future employer calls up, and your friend launches into a long tirade about your political views. Would you ask that friend to be your character reference again?
Posts about your horrible boss- You might have a terror running your office, making you work overtime, come in on weekends, always speaking down to you- but guess what? Other employers do not need to know. Maybe they yelled at and fired an intern for putting too much sugar in their coffee, and it is a juicy and rich story- your future employer still does not need to know. It can feel nice to get validation from our friends and family about hostile work environments, but if you want to get hired you should talk to them about it privately. The last thing any employer wants to see is a bunch of public material about how bad they are, and the last thing they want to see a potential employee doing is writing that kind of stuff.
Remember that social media is pretty public, things you say online will be seen by anyone who wants to see them. Social media is like an extremely gossipy friend, if you tell it something you have no idea how many other people will hear. So be careful, and do your best not to have your social media hurt your job search!