Here’s Why You Should Clean Facebook Before an Interview
February 25, 2019 | Career Blog
Around 68% of Americans have a Facebook profile, and a lot of them are not fully aware of how it works. People can tag you in things that you do not have to approve if you don’t change the setting, and anyone can look at your profile. If you are going to have your Facebook fully accessible for everyone to look at, you will want to be sure that there is nothing on there that could give a potential employer the wrong idea about you. Employers often will look you up and see what they can find on you before they bring you in, just to make sure that you look like a respectable person and that interviewing is not a waste of their time. If you do not know how to go in and give your Facebook a cleaning, keep reading.
How To Do It
If you do all of the following, you will no longer have to worry about Facebook preventing you from getting the job:
Make sure your profile picture is professional. You can make everything on your profile private, but people will still be able to view your profile picture. Set your photo to something that doesn’t send a negative message.
Double check that all of your privacy settings are intact. Facebook makes updates to it’s platform a lot, and these changes can have an effect on the settings you have made. You may have made certain things private, but if they got rid of part of that setting, they could now be available for the public to view.
Hide your photo albums or delete photos that don’t present you in a tasteful light. If you have had Facebook for years, it is easy to forget about photos you put up from high school or college parties. At the time, these photos weren’t a big deal, but now, they could affect the way a potential employer thinks of you. Set your albums to private or go through and make sure to delete such photos.
Review the rest of your profile, such as your ‘likes’ and cover photos. Whenever you like a movie or band on Facebook it gets put onto your profile. You might not even realize that the only movies you ever liked are in the horror category, and if that is all you have listed as liking it could give people the wrong impression. Also, your current cover photo may be clean, but you want to make sure that all of the photos you have put up there in the past are, too. This is something your employers can also view.
View your Facebook when you are not logged in as you. You may think that you have sufficiently cleaned everything up on your page, but you can’t be completely sure you didn’t miss something unless you can view it from another person’s perspective. Ask a friend to pull up your profile so you can see what the rest of your ‘friends’ see. You can also create another Facebook profile and look yourself up to see what those that aren’t ‘friends’ with you will see.
In Conclusion
Don’t let your Facebook profile ruin your chances at a job before you get to the interview. It only takes about 20 minutes to do, and it really does make all of the difference. If you think they won’t look, think again, almost everyone does. For more information on how to make your social media look respectable, in addition to cleaning your resume and preparing for an interview, contact our customer service line here.