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Can Your Digital Footprint Keep You Unemployed? – Pt. 3

By Willette Coleman ©2016

No Online Presence?*

You’re a private person with no online presence?  Well…..you could be between a rock and a hard place.  A CareerBuilder’s Social Media Recruitment Survey found “35 Percent of Employers [are] Less Likely to Interview Applicants They Can’t Find Online.” And, since hiring managers also recruit candidates via social media (a Jobvite survey found 2/3 of Companies Now Recruit via Facebook, Over Half Use Twitter and Almost All Use LinkedIn), an online presence has become a necessary career tool.

As noted, online caution cannot be underestimated.  Many people still don’t get it, or just WON’T believe it, but the Internet is not, I repeat NOT, a private place.  Hence, the terms world-wide-web (www) and Inter –“net.”  Nets are designed to gather/trap stuff.  People tend to dismiss the fact that their online entries and photos, no longer belong to them exclusively; unlike those pasted in personal photo albums resting in a drawer or on a shelf at home.  Even pictures and content on your iphone are susceptible to Internet trollers get a kick out of hacking into devices.  (See:  How to Protect Your iPhone Data Against Hackers and Malicious Activity.)

Some Internet trollers work for companies to “lift” photos and paste them in ads to pretend you’ve endorsed a product, a major complaint by Dr. OZ. But, you don’t have to be famous for deceitful people to place your photo on their website praising their product or service; even photo shopping your image on to a pornographic site. (See: Stolen Profile Photos, Can You Protect Yours?)

According to abine.com, an online privacy blog, “Under many websites’ Terms of Use, you lose rights in whatever you post as soon as you post it.  That’s why it’s absolutely key that you think before you post…”

Remember:
Like GPS systems, your (and my) digital footprints are tracked…by “cookies.” Our every Internet move, from searching for jobs, loans, scholarships, and housing to dating sites, is recorded by this innocent sounding file embedded in computers.  You can learn how to turn off cookies at Onlineonguard.gov.

Most importantly, YOU put your likeness and personal information in cyberspace or the “cloud.”  Consequently, you’re willingly allowing anyone to peek into your life, which is why “invasion of privacy” may be difficult to prove.

Finally, I kind of went off track in some areas in this post, but the point is that, even if you’re a veteran employee, you’re not exempt from your employer scoping your social media, which is why, in the final analysis, reputation still matters.  INTEGRITY COUNTS!  The best practice – which is old-school – is:  “Say it, forget it.  Write it, regret it.”

Have employers checked your social media?  What happened?  Share.

*This series is a three-part series. Check out part 1 of the series here! Interested in writing for our Guest Blogger series? Email info@perkconsulting.net.
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Willette Coleman is a career planning and scholarship coach.  Her blog is www.careernscholarshipscoach.blogspot.com.