For jobs be aware of social media rather than beware

For some time now there have been stories about people, particularly youngsters, being identified in embarrassing social media entries ( videos on YouTube, pictures on Facebook or Flickr, blog posts on WordPress or Blogger, tweets on Twitter) which causes problems with their employers or, if they are still teenagers, could cause problems when they come to look for their first job. My wife and I have been telling our children for a while that they need to careful what they publish even when they are young, since it might come to the surface and count against them in five or ten years time.

But this article in imedia made me think again. It talks about employers starting to look at Klout scores and favouring those who score highly. Those who are active and engaged on social media are demonstrating their ability to communicate and to influence others, which can be important characteristics for some jobs such as marketing. This leads to the conclusion that it might be useful to be active in social media to give yourself an edge when applying for jobs.

Also the fear of embarrassing incidents from the past being visible on social media and being a major disadvantage in finding employment may reduce over time. We have all had embarrassing episodes in our past, but until recently they have only been seen by a few people. Yet the younger generation are growing up with a more open idea of what can or should be shared. In a few years, those hiring may well think it as normal that the embarrassing incidents can be viewed online as we now think it is normal that they happened at all.

So instead of telling people to beware of their social media profile and to keep it low, we should be telling people to be aware of their profile and raise it in the right way