Searching for a job or making connections with potential business partners?  Everyone and everything is on the internet and now more than ever people are using social media to gain insight into the true character of a person before ever meeting them.  Set yourself up for success by taking a good look at your online presence before submitting your resume and cover letter for consideration.

People on their cell phones

Keep Your Private Life Private

If you have a personal account, consider taking it private – especially when you are job searching.  You can always switch it back to public later, but really be aware of what image you are putting out into the world.  Ask a friend to look over your profile to see if there is anything they would change or remove so that people don’t get the wrong idea.  There’s nothing wrong with being a little more private to avoid oversharing.

Purge and Professionalize

You might be someone who joined Facebook back when you had to be a college student, before just anyone could get on the most popular networking site of the 2000’s.  Remember the days when it was just a bunch of college kids sharing photos of their drunken parties and deepest thoughts on the universe?  Those posts still exist unless you delete them or take them down, so you might want to consider doing a deep dive into the good ‘ol days and purge anything that you wouldn’t want a potential employer seeing.  Take a walk down memory lane and clean up your online presence in one swoop.

Work Life Separation

Having separate accounts might be a good idea if you have a hard time letting go of the past.  Create an online professional account and keep your personal life separate under a different name or handle that isn’t associated with your googleable name.  Then there’s no limiting yourself if that’s more your thing.

Politics, Religion and All the Good Stuff

Some people have a reaaally hard time staying away from discussing religion, politics and other personal affairs on their social media profiles.  While you could argue sharing is caring, you never know just who you might be offending or turning away because of your latest tirade.  These include people who could be in charge of making important professional decisions in your life.  Cool it for a while or consider taking your profile private to maintain a professional attitude both on and off the screen.

Social Media is about having fun and connecting with the world.  You just want to make sure you are not putting up your own roadblocks when job searching or working with other business associates.  Consider a few of these solutions to make your professional life easier. 

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