Job Hunting with the Social Web in a Down Economy

There is no question in my mind that one big key to finding work especially in a down economy is by networking. While the adage “it’s not what you know but who you know” is almost accurate, there seems to be a significant advantage to using the social web to find work. Google the phrase “using the social web to find work” and you will be provide a plethora of books, hints, and advice.

It makes sense as well. If you are in a particular social group, say computer programmers or web designers, and a position becomes available within the network, it will be the “friends of” who will hear about it first. That early knowledge could make a difference.

There is a downside to the social web, and a caveat is the subject of this blog. Take care in what you say. Be mindful who your friends are.

Be clear that when you submit a job application, you are often allowing the prospective employer to do a background check on you. Typically, if there are a large number of applications, the employer will not do a check on every single app. It would only be appropriate to “vet” the top x-number of candidates, or those who make it past the first or second screening. When you do make it to top, the checking begins.

In my experience, background checks such as credit checks, identification, citizenship, etc. are only done by HR and are never revealed to the hiring committee. This is and should be written policy.

However, there is nothing that would prevent a screener – who may already be on Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn – from doing a casual (or even explicit) search for your page. In fact, it has been revealed to me by some both inside academia and in the private sector that that is exactly what some screeners do.

Think of it like this: your resume is you in your “Sunday Best”; and it should be: formal, proper, clean.

Your Facebook page is you in your shorts, warts and all. And perhaps there is an appropriateness to that sort of social release as well.

The bottom line: you Facebook page will have as much influence as your interview answers – should you get the interview at all. Why?

What You Say?

A friend of mine is looking for a job and is having a tough time of it. He told me that he wrote on his MySpace that the economy “s----d” and that he was getting discouraged. Now, what do you think that a prospective employer could do with that information? It would not be difficult for that employer to think they could offer a lower starting wage, or perhaps a lesser position. Or worse “If no one else is hiring this guy, why should I?”

Your words, your jokes, your pictures, your tastes are all made available to the world. If you have any racial, political, sexist, or whatever, comments, jokes, postings, venting, you name it, on your page, those will be highlighted and used against you. On that you can depend.

Birds of a Feather

Let’s get back to the “it’s not what you know but who you know” conversation. Who you have on your friends list and who you allow to post on your page says a lot about you.

Now I get free speech and it’s not my words and all that. But, if you are looking to land a position, and a “friend” has a posting with risqué images, foul language, or that picture of you drunk at your birthday party, what do you think the screeners will think?

On my own site I have “friends” who are relatives, or friends-of-friends, or whatever and I do not have control over what they do or post or say. But, I do have control over what they place on my site. And if they get out of hand: Boom, they are gone.

Suppose that I have a “friend” who lives on the other side of the country. Suppose further that they have a friend who I may or may not know but have accepted their friend request for whatever reason. Follow on to the next dot and Facebook will tell me that friend 1 and friend 2 have a mutual friend 3. I do not know Friend 3. I have never met Friend 3. But, because of the association with friends 1 and 2, I accept the friend request for Messier 3.

Then Friend 3 posts something truly horrible.

Here’s the bad news: it was his posting and not yours, but he is your friend. The hiring screeners will not stop to wonder if Mr. 3 is a true friend or only an internet “friend”. It does not matter anyway. It’s too late. Like the saying goes “don’t get none on you”; well, Mr. 3 “got some on you”.

The bottom line is that if you are using the social web as a part of your work search, get your pages clean and get them clean now.

There is an old saying that goes “I cannot stop the birds from flying over my head, but I can stop them from building a nest in my hair”.