accountingcpd.net author Anna Faherty looks at the role social media plays in your professional life even before you have a job.
By Anna Faherty
With all the buzz about super injunctions and Twitter in the past few weeks, you could be forgiven for thinking social media is all about whistle-blowing and privacy-hungry premiership footballers. But social media can be of use to us all - especially when we’re recruiting staff or applying for jobs ourselves. Recent research shows recruiters are using social media more than applicants, and even rejecting candidates on the basis of their social media profiles.
Recruiters using social media
Jobsite's annual survey of 600 human resource and recruitment professionals found 83% of respondents using - or intending to use - social networks for recruitment in 2010. With spending on external recruitment services dropping, respondents also rated social networks significantly higher for candidate quality than job boards. For those organisations already using social networks for recruiting, 86% use LinkedIn, 60% use Facebook and 50% use Twitter, with more than 80% reviewing the social media profiles of candidates if they can.
Recruiters and applicants out of synch
Although almost two-thirds of the 2,000 global HR professionals consulted in a survey by Microsoft believed it was appropriate to consider potential employees’ online reputation, under half of UK adults ranked a professional online profile as important when trying to secure a new job (in a survey by Personnel Today).
A poor profile could mean rejection
This disparity spells potential disaster for those professionals not spending the time to manage their online profiles. In the Microsoft survey, over 40% of UK HR managers said they had turned an applicant down simply on the basis of their online profile. I'll say that again. One in four HR managers have actually rejected a job candidate because of something in their LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter profile - regardless of their other selling points.
What's even more sobering is the fact that nearly one in six people do not deliberately censor or edit content on their social networks to avoid career problems (from Kelly Services' Kelly Global Workforce Index).
It’s no wonder, therefore, that Charles Ashworth, Managing Director of recruitment agency Brook Street Bureau was quoted in Personnel Today recommending that "potential candidates actively review and manage their online presence on an ongoing basis".
So if you're interested in advancing your professional career, log on to those social media sites and make sure you present an appropriate image. If you don't know where to start, my Social Media for Accountants course is now available. It will take you through the technical basics and help you develop your own personal online 'brand'.
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