Is Your Facebook Profile Stopping You From Getting a Job?

There are 1.2 billion people on Facebook, 550 million on Twitter and 225 million on LinkedIn; some of them are yourselves, some of them are your employers and some, perhaps most importantly, are your future employers. 

A survey conducted by Reppler found that 91% of recruiters and employers now use social media to screen applicants before they ask them to interview; 69% of those admit that they have chosen not to employ someone based on what they've found. With this in mind, it is now more important than ever before to project a professional persona online, particularly when you're looking for a new job.

Source: Reppler

1. Lockdown Your Facebook Profile

When an employer or recruiter searches for you on Facebook, unless you have accepted them as a Friend, they should only be able to see your name and your smiling profile photo. While all the options are available on Facebook to prevent employers you don't know from seeing your full profile, it can be a bit of a challenge trying to find them - until now.

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Click on the cog icon in the top right hand corner and select 'Privacy Settings'. The first and third options you will see are the most important to you. They let you choose who can see anything you will post in the future and everything you have posted in the past. Make sure you enable Friends only for the first option and 'Limit Past Posts' for the third.

2. Control Your Friends (Posts Only)

Facebook is one of the most personal social media platforms out there, so you don't want everyone seeing what you share on it. However, even if you are careful with what you share, you don't have as much control over what your friends share on your Timeline.

To protect this aspect of your profile, select the 'Timeline and Tagging' option in the left hand menu of Privacy Settings. You will see two important options: 'Who can see posts you've been tagged in on your timeline' and 'Who can see what others post on your timeline'. By enabling Friends only under these options, you will hide from employers any content that your friends post or tag you in.

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Top Tip! By selecting Friends, only those people you have accepted on Facebook will be able to see the contents of your profile. The Everyone option means exactly what it says on the tin; anyone and everyone can see the content you share (and scarily, they can save or print screen that content and take it elsewhere).

3. See Yourself From the Eyes of a Recruiter

Under the Timeline and Tagging menu, you will see an option titled 'Review what other people see on your Timeline'. By selecting this option you will see how your profile appears to anyone who looks at it who is not an accepted friend of yours. You can even type in the name of someone within your friend list - perhaps a work colleague- to see what information you are sharing with them. Sharing too much with the wrong people? Make sure you have followed the steps above and let's move on to creating Friend lists.

4. Divide and Conquer Your Facebook Friends

Your Facebook friends are a diverse bunch; you will have close friends, family, work colleagues and probably a few people you never even speak to any more lurking about. For this reason, you might not want to share the same content with all of them. For example, you might want to post a photo from a night out that your boss probably doesn't need be made aware of.  How do you keep it from them without them knowing? With a Facebook friend list. It may seem a bit tedious to organise, but if you are going to add people from work and share content from your private life, it's worth doing.

• Go to the Facebook profile of a work colleague
• Click on the 'Friends' tab at the top of their profile (toward the bottom of their cover photo)
• Select 'Add to another list...' > '+New List' and call it 'Work Colleagues'
• They will automatically be added to the list
• Now go the profiles of other work colleagues and click on the 'Friends' tab - you will automatically be able to add them to the Work Colleagues list

Whenever you share content on your Facebook profile, click the Friends tab > Custom > Don't Share This With and type in Work Colleagues. Click save and they'll never you know you've put them on a list, or that you're hiding content from them.

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Top Tip! Too much hassle? Facebook automatically gives you a Restricted list, which will hide all of your content from those who have been added to it; particularly handy if you don't want to offend someone by not accepting their friend request, but also don't really want them to see what you're up to.

5. The Alternative to Everything Listed Above

Don't share your life online! The temptation is there to share every little thing you do with everyone you know, but - a shock for some, I know - you don't have to! Like it or not, social media is narrowing the gap between our public and private lives and is bringing us closer together online than we may ever get in person. Definitely share personal content on your social media profiles - that's what they're there for after all - but don't share anything that could compromise your career.

6. Use Facebook to Your Career Advantage

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In the same way that you can use your LinkedIn profile to get a new job, you can use your Facebook profile to your advantage. 68% of employers surveyed by Reppler also revealed that the good things they found on a candidate's social media profile contributed to them being hired. If you share work appropriate content and can keep a tab of what is shared on your profile, then by all means leave it open for employers to find and browse. This can be the perfect way for them to gain an insight into your personality and realise that you are the right cultural fit for their company. It can be dangerous ground, but, when handled well, it can work in your favour.

The Social Media Small Print

You can follow all of our tips above to protect your privacy, but ultimately, total privacy on social media doesn't exist. An increasing number of employees are reporting that their fellow work colleagues and Facebook 'friends' have taken a print screen of their after work antics and shared them with senior members of staff, which has led to disciplinary action being taken. 

Although we like to think our social media profiles are our own space to use how we wish, if we are going to invite people from our professional life into our personal life we have to take a bit of responsibility for what we share. So, whenever you go to post something, ask yourself if you would be happy to share it with a new employer. If the answer is no, keep it to yourself, because the chances are they might just end up finding it.

Cassie Lockyer is a Senior eMarketing Executive for Resource Solutions Group. If you have any more questions on this topic, or would like some advice on using social media in your job search, please connect with her on LinkedIn.