Your Potential Employers “Google” You

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are great tools for finding a job and connecting with other people that can help your career search. On the other hand, it can also hurt you big time! When Social media is used incorrectly it can backfire and often times leave you standing there without a job. Always be careful, stop and think before you tweet or add a comment or status update.

Online Existence

While looking for a new job, it is a good career move to have an online existence where you can show your skills and experience. An online profile during a career/job search will also help you find new contacts that may lead you to moving up the ladder.

Reliable Information

Make sure that what you are presenting on your current resume is indeed current and also matches your LinkedIn profile. You can restate your job descriptions if you wish to target your resume to a certain company, but you must make sure that your former and present job titles, companies and dates are accurate. If not…you may have put up a big red flag for future employers.

Caution Ahead

In this new world of online social media sites make sure that anything put online about you doesn’t put you in hot water. Employers will and can check Facebook and Twitter accounts to see what you are posting. The last thing you want is to get fired or not be offered a new job because you had to post pictures and comments about the weekend when you were out bar hopping. There was a situation just recently where a politician was asked to leave office because he thought sending an inappropriate picture to women over Twitter was ok to do. It’s not. If you want to be a professional business person-act like one.

Google Yourself

The first thing you can do before you start a job search is Google your name and see what kind of search results you find. There is a lot of information that an employer can find out about you by doing this step.  Did you know that if someone tags you in a tweet, status update or comment that it could show up in a search? It is so easy to find the information you think is hidden just by doing a quick search.

Facebook Settings

If you are on Facebook make sure you have your privacy settings saved correctly. If you are not careful about your settings friends can even share your photos if you don’t limit who can view your information. Having a future boss able to see you in an inappropriate situation might not be what you are ready for.