Posted by: Laura Ilie
Recently we received a notification from one of our recruiting partners that they decided to stop using their current job search engine in favor of LinkedIn. We were not very surprised as social networking sites attract today both head hunters and job seekers and they become an excellent tool not only for recruiting but also for a complete background checks for job candidates.
By now a great majority of people have already joined a social network or two in order to stay in touch with people they care about and be able to share information, news, photos, video clips with the various groups that they belong to. All the information is public, posted online and can be searched for and this allows recruiters to be able to find the right candidate and do complete backgrounds check.
This may sound as good as it gets for both recruiters and job seekers. However there always are two sides of the coin as the privacy issue might have some repercussions about people careers. People entries in today's social networking sites may haunt them in the future, when they will enter (or re-enter) the job market. These entries may seem temporary to them because they can be deleted, but once public, other people that saw these entries may have printed or saved a copy of the pictures, posts, and videos, and re-post them again on their pages.
People should use common sense to determine what should be posted or not, but while some things may be obvious (for example party photos showing you drunk and/or hugging other people will definitely not help your career), others often involve more consideration and a clear understanding that once you joined a social network your private live is not longer that separate from your public/work life. You need to be aware that if you post information related to your current place of employment or about your current coworkers or your boss, you could end up divulging confidential information or creating a legal liability for yourself or the company where you work. Or in case you have a high profile position in your company you should make sure that your posted opinions are in line and not in opposition to your current company culture and image.
These are just a few examples about the potential impact of your social network activity on your career.
If you want to find out more, please visit us at: http://www.rcibgroup.com/.
