Why You Need to Think Before You Tweet

Social media continues to play a growing role in the recruiting business – with a new twist.

Scouring SM for qualified candidates has become a de facto process and the leader by a clear margin is LinkedIn.

But today’s social media searchers are not attracted by LinkedIn’s extremely powerful database segmentation and global search flexibility. In fact, they are not looking for more candidates at all. They have a candidate. They are now checking up on what he or she has made public on the web in a bid to asses behavioural characteristics.

According to a recent UK survey, almost half of recruiters queried (48%) use social media sites to dig out information on potential job candidates. Of those who don’t, 12% plan to.

Why?

Because of another statistic: 55% of employers who research applicants on the web say they have seen something that makes them not want to hire the candidate.

These people are not just trolling social media sites, they are using Google and other search engines to check what expressions or actions are attributed to the candidate. And, as we are learning from another critical issue surrounding the internet, it’s all there: once you have been associated with an issue or opinion, it is almost impossible to eradicate it, true or false.

Key problem flags are reference to drinking or drug habits, disparaging remarks concerning previous employers and inappropriate photos.

The fact that so many recruiters are interested in what you tweet might encourage job seekers to double check their privacy settings as well as pay attention to who they allow to post to their profile.

And there is an upside if you keep your profile clean. One third of the employers surveyed say they found content that made them more likely to hire the candidate.