Career Builder: 45% Of Companies Check Out Candidates On Facebook
There’s no denying that finding a job in today’s market is a challenge. So what can you do to up your chances of landing the right position? According to CareerBuilder, you better keep a clean Facebook page.
According to a recent survey by the site, 45% of companies are checking out potential employees’ social pages. This is twice a high as last year’s numbers, when only 22% of companies surveyed last year were checking in on applicants through their social sites.
Facebook was the most-checked site, with 29% of hiring managers saying they browsed through people’s pages to get an idea of what candidates were like away from work. That’s even higher than the 26% of employers that checked out profiles in LinkedIn, which is considered more of a business-related site.
10% of employers say they look at personal blogs, and 7% of employers checking out Twitter feeds. Not surprisingly, the industries that are the most prone to screening social sites are IT (63%) and Professional and Business Service (53%).
Of course, Facebook users that are also seeking jobs may want to take a little time to make sure there aren’t any photos or posts on their pages that may reflect poorly on their judgment. On the other side of that coin, your Facebook page can serve to boost your odds of landing a job. A professional presentation and the right affiliations with applicable Facebook groups can make you a much more attractive candidate than someone with the exact same resume and questionable pictures of his or her trip to Vegas posted in their news feed.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:39 am
Whenever we hire, we DEFINITELY look at candidates FB, Twitter, blog, etc. This post makes it sound like you need to sanitize all of these things to look “professional”.
On the contrary, at SetJam we look for people who are interesting. Any employer who would ding you for having a life, isn’t probably an organization you want to be involved with anyway.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:59 am
How is it possible that a company (potentially hiring) can view a candidate’s FB without them being a friend? That is not possible unless a they are a friend or the candidate has left their Facebook open for viewing.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:15 am
there are 2 things i dont understand with this:
1) how do the HR departments find the persons facebook/twitter/blogs etc? there are millions of pauls on there – it would take ages to find me! especially if i have a profile picture that doesn’t contain me.
2) most facebook profiles are restricted so how do they gain access to them?
August 21st, 2009 at 10:04 am
I love that picture and story behind it from a while back!!!!
Classic.
W
August 21st, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Bruce and Paul: sometimes users share content more broadly than just their friend lists. In these cases, content can potentially be seen by anyone. However, I’ve also heard of recruiters sending a friend request to the candidate in order to see their photos and content that may not be restricted behind privacy-controlled friend lists.
August 21st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
[...] Tomorrow, prospective employers will use the depth and breadth of our Facebook persona and engagement to help them figure out who to choose, refer and recommend. The days of printed personal brochures and previously traditional forms of personal promotion will be history. With Facebook we can fashion our own personal lake of information, engagement, experience and entertainment. The question is, will our lake be deep, wide and fizzy or a piddling puddle of insignificance and boredom? [...]
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:11 am
[...] Via | Insidefacebook.com [...]
August 24th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
If these are all true, does this mean that Facebook allow companies your view your profile even if it is set to private or friends only? Isn’t this illegal? Invading personal privacy? This is very interesting, could not I not sue my prospective employer or Facebook. I just don’t understand why a huge percentile of hiring managers think the social sites are the new resume wizard. I agree with Ryan that a company who doesn’t want you to have a social life then it’s not worth working for, I’m not a robot or slave to anyone. I’m here to help.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:48 am
[...] Downloadblog, ItaliaFacebook, InsideFacebook Share this on del.icio.usDigg this!Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponShare this [...]
September 28th, 2009 at 7:33 am
[...] companies have found social networks quite handy when they want to know more about a potential employee, but Jobvite is giving them a simple, organized and trackable method for actually finding those [...]
September 28th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
[...] companies have found social networks quite handy when they want to know more about a potential employee, but Jobvite is giving them a simple, organized and trackable method for actually finding those [...]
September 28th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
[...] of this on Facebook and other sites including LinkedIn and Twitter.[...] Many companies have found social networks quite handy when they want to know more about a potential employee, but Jobvite is giving them a simple, organized and trackable method for actually finding those [...]
January 14th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
[...] reason to pause before posting photos showing them dancing on tables, downing a fifth of whiskey. Surveys suggest up to 45 percent of employers check applicants’ social network [...]
April 11th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Probably there is some money involved…:) Big Companies give Facebook a good offer and next day they are on your profile without u noticing it..I dont know but these days everything is possible!
August 13th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
[...] they peek on candidates’ social networking sites (more detail in this article – http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/08/21/career-builder-45-of-companies-check-out-candidates-on-face...). And that was a year ago, so I’m betting that percent’s a helluva lot higher now. So [...]
March 26th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
[...] Holliday, Matt. August 2009. Inside Facebook. [Web] Retrieved from: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/08/21/career-builder-45-of-companies-check-out-candidates-on-face... [...]
April 8th, 2011 at 7:47 am
[...] Holliday, Matt. August 2009. Inside Facebook. [Web] Retrieved from: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/08/21/career-builder-45-of-companies-check-out-candidates-on-face... [...]