Social Media Can Help You Get Hired

CareerBuilder survey indicates employers are swayed by favorable findings online

If you’re looking for a job your social media presence is fair game. Today 51 percent of employers are researching potential candidates online. And what they find can have an impact on the hiring decision for better or worse.

It’s no surprise that perceived bad behaviors can hurt your chances of getting a job. But, employers are not just using social media to weed out potential problems but to seek out positive behaviors according to a survey by CareerBuilder.

Favorable content online can mean the difference between being passed over and being hired. Almost a third of respondents (33 percent) said that they’ve found something online that made them more likely to hire a candidate. With 23 percent saying they found content that directly led them to hire a candidate.

So what were the most common reasons why employers hired a candidate based on what they found online? The top ten reasons were:

• Got a good feel for the job candidate’s personality, could see a good fit within the company culture – 46 percent
• Job candidate’s background information supported their professional qualifications for the job – 45 percent
• Job candidate’s site conveyed a professional image – 43 percent
• Job candidate was well-rounded, showed a wide range of interests – 40 percent
• Job candidate had great communication skills – 40 percent
• Job candidate was creative – 36 percent
• Job candidate received awards and accolades – 31 percent
• Other people posted great references about the job candidate – 30 percent
• Job candidate had interacted with my company’s social media accounts – 24 percent
• Job candidate had a large amount of followers or subscribers – 14 percent

While responding to the survey, employers also shared some of the strangest things they found on a candidate’s or current employee’s social media profiles, including:

• Candidate’s profile included links to an escort service
• Candidate posted a photo of a warrant for his arrest
• Candidate posted an exercise video for grandmothers
• Candidate had sued his wife for shooting him in the head
• Candidate featured a pig as his closest friend
• Candidate posted his dental exam results
• Candidate bragged about driving drunk and not getting caught on several occasions
• Candidate was actively involved in a demonic cult
• Candidate posted Sasquatch pictures he had taken

For more details on the survey visit CareerBuilder.