Is Your Facebook Profile Damaging Your Chances of Work?

Bejant, a Cisco partner, is an expert in recruitment and career advice. Here they take us through some simple rules to follow when mixing business with pleasure online.

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social networking sites are fun places to keep in touch with friends using public messages, photos and videos but you need to be aware of what impression it can give to employers who have never met you before.

Today companies are Googling candidates as a normal part of their screening process. If you are looking for a job, you need to start managing your digital professional identity .

Is your party photos ruining your chances with HR?

Where blogs or posts you’ve written mix in with party pictures others have taken and tagged you in – what does your reputation look like online?

How do you control the perception prospective employers have of you as we move into a new era of digital communication?

Don’t have your job hunting hopes dashed because of the information on your social profiles – take ownership of your online identity and learn to protect and manage your reputation online by following a few simple steps.

• Don’t engage in activities that display childish behavior. They may seem to be fun at first, e.g., poking people, slapping your friends sending obscene messages etc but will give a bad impression to a wider professional audience.
• Privacy protection is also about control, controlling who gets to see what information – so make that only your friends can view your Facebook or MySpace page.
• Police the comments that your friends leave on your profile page and make sure that they match with the image of yourself you are trying to project.
• Remember to respect your friends’ privacy too! Don’t publish photos and videos of others if they told you not to. Photos and videos may seem funny to you, but they may not be so in the eyes of your friends and their prospective employers.
• Disassociate yourself from any groups that would have a negative impact on your job search.

As social networking has become increasingly important to our lives it is essential to separate our personal identity to our professional identity – the image that we want to present to employers and others in our professional network.

Building and managing your professional identity online will help you secure the job that you want and help you move up the career ladder as 1 in 4 employers search for job applicant profiles on professional networking sites.

Bejant is a Cisco partner, offering you help in managing your public professional persona in today’s expansive digital media. We can offer you the online tools that will allow you to create a professional profile.

A professional profile on www.bejant.com gives you the opportunity to promote your experience, talents and interests by posting up your qualifications, cv, videos, blogs and much more. Bejant also allows you to connect with professionals who can help you advance your career. Feel free to check out our site to find out more.

Since this article was written, we turned the tables on Bejant and Googled them! Check out the review we found of their site and services. Please note that Bejant.com has been undergoing a refresh.