Tuesday’s Tip: When You Use Social Media… Be An Open Book

Why do job seekers want to keep their information private? As a recruiter, if we can't find you, there is no magic lamp that we can rub for you to appear. Here are 3 reasons that I have heard why some people are not comfortable providing their contact information, address, and other personal information, followed by my response:

1) Identity theft: I don't buy the "someone will steal my identity" claim because there are so many other easier ways for the criminals to find and steal your identity. I would bet that no jury in the United States has ever listened to a person on trial explain how they sneaked into LinkedIn late one night, found some "secret" information, then tweeted the person asking them for their password, and set up a meeting via meetup.com for the both of them to meet at the victims local bank for a complete withdrawal of all their money. It just doesn't happen this way! If you are worried about putting your address on your resume, go to www.pipl.com, type in your first name, last name, and state. You will see LOTS of information about you that is already published for anyone to see; including your address, and more.

2) My employer will see that I am looking: You can make your social media "profile" sound open ended by using the following statement, "Always open to networking and hearing about opportunities in my industry where I can refer qualified people".

3) I don't want potential hiring companies to see me doing personal things: Despite the "rumor mill" that recruiters and hiring companies are out there looking at at Facebook and other Social Media sites to "catch" you drinking a beer while hanging upside down, and revoking the offer to you, this is not done (very much) at the professional level. Most companies are still learning how to use social media FOR GOOD, and are not yet worried about analyzing the bad stuff posted on peoples profiles. The exception to this might be the hourly worker, but all the professional recruiters that I have talked to rely on the background check to "flag" any discrepancies in the application or data provided to the employer.

So make it easy for those recruiters and companies to find you. Turn off all security restrictions and "get connected" to the 2011 way of socializing/networking on the Internet.