By Miki Patel
Imagine applying to so many jobs and not receiving a call back. You are left wondering about why you didn’t get that particular job. The odds are that the employers looked at your social networking and found something that made them think negatively towards you.
According to Danny Brown, more than 25 billion pieces of content is shared each month. With the high percent of content, it’s hard to say what is safe to post and what is not. So, how do you know what employers look for on your social networking profile?
When employers look at your profile, they are trying to find out more information about your character and the types of information you post about yourself. They want to get a feel of who you really are and social networking profiles open up so much about you without you even knowing it.
Branden Palone is someone who shares a lot about his personality through his Facebook profile.
“I write my own lyrics and post them on Facebook,” said Palone. “They do say a lot about me and I do think about what employers are going to think, but I think they’re just lyrics. What can possibly go wrong with lyrics?”
You should never share your birth year, place of birth and home address on any type of social networking website because this can give identity thieves a way to steal your financial life.
Another thing that you should never do on social networking websites is to let others know about your vacation plans. If you tell someone exactly when you’ll be gone, this can easily increase your chances of getting robbed.
Sue Mills, the strategic computer technology teacher at Loy Norrix, suggests another way to be cautious when dealing with social networking.
“I would make sure I’m taking links off pictures that can tell others where you’ve been because with GPS systems, it’s easy to locate someone,” said Sue Mills.
Facebook, the most popular social networking website, has more than 800 million active users and more than 250 million pictures uploaded per day according to the Facebook statistics. With the high number of users, it’s better to be safe than to be sorry.
Guest2 • Oct 28, 2011 at 4:40 am
To the guest above, Danny Brown is a website that does “the human side of media and the social side of marketing” so it is a reliable source (it’s a full service marketing agency). And also the writer did say that she got her info from facebook stats, danny brown and some of the info sounds like obvious things that one might already know like what u shouldnt post so there’s no point in credditing stuff one might know. Miki, i think this article was great.
Guest • Oct 23, 2011 at 12:23 am
I don’t understand where you’re getting your information from, and I’m not sure Danny Brown is a credible source.
Drew Pawloski • Oct 21, 2011 at 10:32 pm
I thought this was a good article.