Social Media Can Also Hurt Your Career

As much of an advantage social media can be to your career as, it can also do harm if you don't use it caringly. While social media becomes the cutting-edge branding strategy, networking technique, job seeking tool and recruitment vehicle, at the same time it is becoming the newest method for people to get job offers withdrawn, reprimanded at work and even fired, says Westhill Consulting Career and Employment, Australia. Increasing number of employers are googling job candidates and current employees, and sometimes what they're finding is seriously detrimental.

It's comprehensible to deliberate what you post online is fragment of your personal life and not rather an employer should, or would, concern themselves with. On the other hand, the internet has no firewall between your personal and professional lives. It's all there for any employer who wanted to look. Thus you should at all times ask yourself if what you post is something you'd mind an employer seeing.

The TV test if you have heard of the "TV test" for how professionals should conduct themselves, they magnified. The test inquires, "Would I be comfortable if this opinion, statement, action, behavior, or association were broadcast on national TV (sometimes without context)?" Social media is the evolution of the "TV test"—with potentially ever- lasting results.

The internet is open to public therefore open to everyone to see. What you post on the Internet such as photos, status updates, tweets, blog posts, and comments on other people's blogs are all traceable and is not private, and it leaves a trail. It can and it will impact your reputation. The delete/edit button is a false sense of security, it can deceive you into thinking that it now gone, but the truth is that even the things you think you've removed can be retrieved or live on in search engines.

Don't say it online if you wouldn't say it to your boss. There are job candidates whose online profiles included racial rants, inappropriate photos, political diatribes, and comments about being hungover or playing hooky, these stuff will surely withdrew you from being employed. These are serious red flags for employers, and there's no scarcity of possibly career-damaging booboos, even some by sophisticated social media users

"Privacy settings" aren't fool-proof. While privacy settings can give you the illusion of privacy, they're not infallible. Warning! Proceed at your own risk!

That post might violate company policy. Many employers have social media policies governing what employees are allowed to post on social networks; make sure you are aware of your company's policy!

This is not to scare you off from using social media, this is actually the opposite. It can be a huge boost for your career, how, it is just by making sure you're being considerate about how you use it and understand the positive and negative implications of how you use social networks.