Social Media: Once your resume gets past the ATS Software hurdle and a hiring manager considers you qualified to move forward in the process, one of the first things they’ll do is Google your name. Most likely, one or more of your social media accounts will come up. These generally fit into one of two categories — professional and personal. LinkedIn and Twitter are professional while Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok are personal. It’s important to post accordingly, restricting fun, personal, celebration-related information to sites like Facebook.
Your LinkedIn page is critical. It should be similar to your resume but can also include endorsements and — most importantly — recommendations, which can be very helpful. Having LinkedIn mirror your resume is extremely important. Discrepancies in dates or job information look very suspicious.
Companies can find tons of information that candidates themselves have posted, so it’s important to be careful what you post — anywhere! — if you don’t want hiring managers to see you as some kind of flake.
We once had a candidate who worked for me as a Contractor/Staff Accountant. We hadn’t Googled her before she came aboard, but after she began failing to show up on Mondays we looked for her online. The first thing we spotted were Facebook photos that made it look like she might as well have been sponsored by a dispensary — I’d never seen one person with so many different bongs. A good rule of thumb is if you wouldn’t show it to your mother or grandmother, don’t post it on social media for the whole world to see.
