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Social media – could it be costing you a career?

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We live in a modern world where your private life can be discovered at the click of a button. From facebook, to snap chat, to twitter, our opinions and lifestyle aren’t as private as they maybe should be.

Optima has been open for 11 years and in that time, we have seen a dramatic rise in the number of interviews (and in some case’s job offers) that are retracted due to social media.

Employers are more thorough than ever when considering who to interview and it is becoming more and more common for employers to research your applications (using social media) and draw a quick conclusion from what they find. Linkedin is often the first port of call but when the facebook or Instagram link is there, it only takes two seconds for last Friday nights photo, that popular meme that you shared and even political or risqué opinions to pop up for all to see.

The moral of this story – set your social media profiles to private! Even if you have the setting that means only friends of friends can view your details, you never know how far those links can go. If you’re going to have an interview over facetime / Whatsapp then ensure your profile picture is one that you wouldn’t mind your new boss seeing.

The best rule of thumb to go by: if you wouldn’t want your parents to see it, it’s probably not recruiter-safe either!

After all, a lot of work goes into an application and interview and it would be a shame for that to go to waste, based on something that you didn’t anticipate being an issue.

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