7 Ways to prepare your social media for a job search

If you’re currently looking for a new job, you’ll understand that there’s a high chance your social media profiles will be scrutinized.

Research shows that 90% of employers will consider an applicant’s social media activity during the hiring process. If this isn’t enough to convince you, statistics show that 79% of HR professionals have actually denied a candidate due to inappropriate content seen on their social media profiles.

Fortunately, there’s a way to prepare your social media for the inevitable background check. As social media screening specialists, we’re always looking for ways to guide individuals and organisations to use social media more effectively. This begs the question: How do you prepare your online presence, and what shows up on a social media background check?

Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. In this post, we’re going to jump straight into the 7 ways to prepare your social media for a job search.

What is a social media background check?

Social media screening is an objective, impartial and unbiased assessment of an individual’s social media behaviour. Essentially, it is modern day pre-employment due diligence to identify and eliminate risks as well as make sure that an individual will fit into the value and culture of a business.

As of January 2022, 58.4% of the world’s population is active on social media, with an average daily usage of 2 hours and 27 minutes per person. This report, by Datareportal, summarizes the importance and growth of social media today.

It’s clear that social and digital media will only continue to become more and more integrated into our daily lives, both personally and professionally. With this in mind, how can you look to improve your chances of passing the social media background check in order to secure your new job?

Let’s dive in.

7 Tips To Nail Your Social Media Background Check

1. Google Yourself
2. Log out and view your social media profiles from an external perspective
3. Understand and use your privacy settings
4. Think twice before posting. (WWGS)
5. Create a detailed LinkedIn account
6. Build a personal brand identity
7. Request a social media background check on yourself

1. Google yourself

If you can find your social media profiles, most other people can find it too.

Make sure you search your full name, email address, and even your cell number to make sure that you’ve found everything online about yourself.

You might be surprised to find images of yourself which you didn’t even know existed, which you can now remove. If you find you’ve been mentioned on a website that you don’t know about – email the site owner to get it removed.

A more concise guide to conducting a social media search on yourself can be found in one of our previous blog posts.

2. Log out and view your social media profiles from an external perspective

You might be surprised to find out how much of your online activity is available to the general public.

The harsh reality is that when you put information onto social media, you are putting it into the public domain for other people to view. Unless your posts are protected by privacy settings, anyone, including journalists and social media background screeners, can see them.

A final point on this topic, is to check out the images that you might have been tagged in. This often happens without your knowledge and it can be reputationally damaging.

3. Understand and use your privacy settings

While this may seem obvious, the reality is that most people don’t use these tools as they should.

A Social Media Today report shows that around 42% of Americans have their social accounts set to public because they want to become influencers.

We advise making use of your privacy settings in order to prevent full access to your (somewhat) personal life. Social Pilot has a great guide on how to manage these.

4. Think twice before posting (WWGS)

It may sound strange, but it’s quite simple; what would Grandma say? Only post things online that you would be happy to share with your Grandmother.

Before replying to a nasty comment, or sending a rude gif, just take a second to consider if it’s the right way to handle the situation. If you wouldn’t be comfortable saying it out loud to a room full of people, you probably shouldn’t be posting it. It is important to remember that although you might not feel the consequences of your actions online immediately – they will most likely come to light at some point.

5. Create a detailed LinkedIn account

If you don’t have a LinkedIn account yet, we highly recommend joining the platform to help find jobs and improve your professional online presence.

Not only will this bolster your social media background check score, but it also sets you up to land your dream job. LinkedIn is home to over 58 million companies and over 50 million active job seekers. Statistics also show that around 87% of recruiters regularly use LinkedIn.

It’s therefore no surprise to find that 95 job applications are submitted through LinkedIn every second, with at least 3 people being hired every minute.

6. Build a personal brand identity

Curating a unique identity online can help you stand out from the crowd, just make sure it’s for the right reasons.

Different social media platforms have different features which allow you to showcase different parts of your personal self. Make sure you are demonstrating your strengths, skills, and ambitions. Not only could this help you land your next job, but it will certainly help your social media background check result.

7. Request a social media background check on yourself

The best way to be sure that your social media presence is squeeky-clean, is to request a social media background check from a reliable screening provider such as Farosian.

This service makes use of technological tools such as artificial intelligence and a trained team of digital data analysts who would be able to identify anything which could sabotage your chances of landing a job. Reach out to us  today for more information.

It is important to remember that everything you do online is a representation of you, and the truth is that the line between personal and professional is becoming more blurred than ever before.

Hiring and background screening will continue to evolve, it is therefore critical that you evolve with it.