Social Networking Sites: Can being linkedin really get you in to a job?

Posted 1 year, 10 months ago at 6:14 pm. 1 comment

I was reading this article from SIOP recently about social networking sites. It suggests that HR professionals still use traditional recruitment techniques, but that there is an increase in the use of social networking sites as a way to find out information about an applicant. The article also states that what HR people find might hurt an applicants chances at getting a job. These sites can not only be used to check the accuracy of your credentials, but they can also be used to check out your character. This got me thinking about what we put out there about ourselves on the internet and what it says to potential employers. So can these social networking sites help or hurt us?

Go ahead, google yourself. It’s important to know what information is out there about you. For myself, I find links to linkedin, facebook, twitter, my book chapter, Akron U’s psychology contact page, and a link to my husband’s blog. I figure that’s not too bad.  At least I have an online presence and the things on there aren’t things I consider to be embarrassing.  If I was an HR professional and I had time to look up that information, you can bet that I would do it. Even now, I find it strange when I go to google someone from my past such as a friend from high school or undergrad and there’s nothing out there. This can be detrimental in some fields where computers are the basis for your profession such as software development, but it doesn’t necessarily matter in other fields. However, at the very least, you should know what employers are likely to come across.

One positive argument for using social networking sites, is that it gets your name and information out there. Larger organizations with more HR people are likely to use social networking sites to seek out people for specific positions or try to recruit people who may not be actively seeking a position at that moment. I think sites like linkedin can be helpful for this as the site is job-related, people can search by information related to your job title or company, and it shows the relationships you have with other people in the field. For example, if you are connected to a person that the HR person knows and respects, that is likely to help you when it comes to the application process. This is not to say that this is sufficient or that it will be the sole determinant of whether you are hired or not, but it can’t really hurt you.

Twitter might also be helpful for some professions as you can interact with several people and ask a large group of experts their opinion. That has worked much better for my husband, who is a software developer, than myself. I think this is because when I look up I/O on Twitter, I only find a few people. Plus, most people talk about what they ate for breakfast and not legitimate issues in their field. My verdict on Twitter is that it isn’t likely to hurt you, so long as the stuff on there isn’t damaging, but it isn’t necessarily going to help you network with others (which is what it is designed for) if the other people aren’t on there.

Some other social networking sites, however, could potentially damage your chances of getting hired. This depends upon what is on there and if the company really wants to dig through all that information about you. Most of us don’t necessarily think about what we put on our facebook or myspace because we consider at something that should only be shared with our friends, but you never know when a night of goofing around can come back to bite you.

Also, we have to consider the connotation associated with these sites. They aren’t really that useful in terms of job-related information, but they do potentially show something about our character. Facebook started out as a site for college students, so it still has that vibe associated with it. That is not bad per se, but again, it depends if there are drunk pictures of you on there.

I don’t know that much about myspace, but the things out there in the media don’t really make myspace out to be a place where a "professional" should be. People tend to talk about it as a place for young kids, pervs, and people like Tila Tequila, so you have to understand that employers probably won’t see a myspace page as something that’s congruent with their value system. But again, this depends on the content of your page and whether the organization is willing to dig through that stuff.

In terms of my advice about social networking sites, I think the full impact remains to be seen and more research needs to be done. Linkedin could be helpful, but in tight-knit communities, such as I/O, people would tend to ask about your grad program and who you know anyway, so I don’t feel like this site is essential (at least not right now). The best option is to put information out there on the internet that is not likely to conflict with the values of the organization you want to join, so think twice about putting scandalous pics on facebook and myspace. Probably all of us have some out there, but I think a good rule is, don’t put stuff online that you wouldn’t show your mom.

The last major thing is a word of caution for those of us who blog– do NOT say anything negative about your previous organization.  Putting that stuff in writing and letting people have unrestricted access to your thoughts might be cathartic for the moment, but it isn’t going to get you anywhere with an employer.