We have all heard of the facebook horror stories: whether it ended a friendship, serious relationship or job opportunity. This weekend’s challenge will help you create a “job friendly” facebook page.
De-Tag Inappropriate Photos
College- and even grad school- is a time when partying and socializing is a priority in most people’s lives. That’s okay- just don’t post ridiculous pictures of the beer bong table you made with your roommate or the huge party you held at your apartment last weekend.
The truth is, many employers are using Facebook as a “background” check and many recruiters are using it to find new talent. So the first part of this weekend challenge is to go through your photos, both tagged by others and your own personal albums, and delete or de-tag any professionally inappropriate pictures.
Privacy Settings are Your Friend
Although there have been issues over Facebook’s privacy policy, the social networking site offers some great tools to protect your profile (and reputation)! Within the privacy settings page, you can restrict certain information from your profile, news feed or even search. I’d recommend playing around with these settings depending on how secure you want your profile to be. For example, I have set both photos and videos to “only me” which means I determine what photos remain public. I highly recommend that you experiment with all of the options. Also, Facebook allows you to “view your profile” which gives you an idea of how your profile appears to the public.
Brand Consistency
Finally, you need to make sure your profile is consistent with your personal brand. The last thing you want to do is appear “professional” on sites like LinkedIn while you appear like a college drunk on Facebook! While completing this challenge, I would make sure your Facebook profile and pictures align with your online brand – whatever that may be.
While brand consistency may seem like a no-brainer, you would be surprised by how many people I’ve connected with or known that had inconsistent brand images (even I had that issue for awhile!). Do what you can now to put your best brand forward- especially before a potential future employer somehow finds their way to your profile.
Author:
Johnny Schroepfer is a Integrated Marketing Communications Graduate Student at Northwestern University. Connect with Johnny on Twitter@jbschroe or visit his website: http://www.johnnyschroepfer.com.
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