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If you’ve done any job searching in the past decade, you’ve probably been told that recruiters look at your social media pages. You may have even heard it from me, in my post about using social media in your job search. It’s true – by 2014, 93% of recruiters were looking at candidates’ social profiles.

Predictably, 79% of recruiters will look at a candidate’s LinkedIn profile, and many are looking at Facebook, Twitter, and candidates’ blogs, too. Fifty-one percent say they’ve decided not to hire a candidate based on what they found on their social media profiles. But what are they really looking for?

The two biggest social media offenses? Profanity and grammar and punctuation errors. According to a 2014 study by Jobvite, recruiters care even more about those two things than about candidates talking about drinking alcohol (they do care about that, too, though – 47% react negatively to it). Other common social media based reasons for not hiring candidates include provocative photographs, bad-mouthing former employers and co-workers, and discriminatory comments.

Fortunately, there’s a positive side to recruiters looking at your social media.  One third of employers who look at candidates’ social profiles say they saw content that made them more interested in hiring a candidate. Social media allows recruiters to see if your personality is a good fit for their company. They’re also more likely to hire you if your social media pages show a professional image and demonstrate that you’re well-rounded with a variety of interests.

Forty percent of job seekers have changed something about their social media presence. You should look over your profiles, too. It could make or break your job search!

Emily Miller
Emily Miller
Emily is Purple Ink’s Director of Marketing. She enjoys being able to exercise both her creative side and her analytical side, and as a Learner, loves helping to create new services and tactics and discovering the best ways to share them with the community.

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