Jobseekers urged to keep Facebook in check over Christmas

Jobseekers are being reminded to keep their online profiles consistent over Christmas and New Year if they don't want their festive antics to jeopardize future job success.

As the party season gets underway, Societal Web expert William Buist has expressed concern over the apparent naivety displayed by many people when it comes to how visible and searchable their online profiles are and for assuming that prospective employers won't take to the web to look for added information about candidates.

Despite being in one of the toughest employment markets on record, Buist believes that hundreds of jobseekers could stop potential job offers in their tracks in 2010 by failing to ensure that their online profiles reflect the person they want potential employers to see.

Imagine a company you have applied to have been impressed by your CV and are thinking about interviewing you, so they run a quick search across most of the social media sites on which they know you are likely to be present. On Ecademy, they find you a keen and open businessman sharing business knowledge and demonstrating your skills and experience well. On LinkedIn, your CV is consistent with everything they've read on your paper CV and from the recruitment agency that sent you. On Facebook, they find a link to some pictures on Flickr that show you being ill after a night of drinking in Central London. On Twitter they hear you chatting about a company you worked for and were sacked from, the sacking isn't mentioned elsewhere. If they don't ask you for interview, you won't ever know that it was this lack of consistency online that caused the problem, but this scenario is far more common than most people like to think, explains Buist.

Buist recommends that anyone searching for a new job reviews their online profiles regularly and also conduct searches on their name to ensure that there are no nasty surprises lurking on forums or other sites. By knowing what information is visible, candidates can take steps to prepare appropriate responses if necessary (for example if the candidate was sacked from a previous job and there is evidence of it online) or limit access, remove pictures etc if they could adversely affect them.

I always advise professionals to limit their Facebook profiles so that they retain total control over which people can see what information. It is also important to remember that Twitter is becoming increasingly searchable and so caution should be taken with Tweets too. Posting something like 'On way to interview at xxx, glad I don't live round here', may seem an innocent enough Tweet but it's not going to bode well with this employer or future ones for that matter, says Buist.