Everyone has heard all the horror stories—the unsuspecting co-ed who posts questionable photos involving inappropriate extracurriculars and then never ever gets a job. It sounds like an exaggeration—who doesn’t have a bar photo or two tagged to his or her social media profile, after all.
But as privacy on the Web becomes an increasingly quaint idea—harking back to an era before celebrities adopted Twitter and amassed millions of followers, the good old days when you needed a .edu email address to set up a Facebook profile—watching what you say online and watching what you say in public are more or less the same thing.
USF St. Petersburg recently updated its social media guidelines for employees, officials and others associated with the university. Anyone who chooses to “post, tweet or comment as an official, employee or expert of the USFSP community” is expected to follow guidelines. They include assuming anything you post—comments, links, photos, videos, blog posts, etc.—are public, observe copyright and confidentiality laws, and remember that what you say on a social media account reflects the institution with which you are affiliated, whether you mean for it to or not.
The university’s guidelines are available to view at www.usfsp.edu/socialmedia via the link at the bottom of the page. Individuals can take a cue from these institutional rules and apply them to their own social media usage—especially students fighting for coveted internships or soon-to-be-graduates starting the post-collegiate job hunt.
Christopher Cristwell, a Starbucks barista, did what every uber-connected millennial with a webcam hopes to do—he made a YouTube video that went viral. Wearing his Starbucks apron, and not much else, he sings about what it is like to deal with unpleasant customers. His “Starbucks Rant Song” has gotten over 900,000 views on YouTube to date. It also got him fired.
And maybe it’s not that big of a deal. Maybe he wasn’t working at the sort of job he hoped to make a career out of, and the song is now available for purchase on iTunes. But not every scathing post or inappropriate tweet can be monetized. Sometimes it’s better to play by the social media rules. Good interview tips include doing as much research about a job or company as you can before an interview. But it’s likely that job or company is doing just as much research on a potential candidate before the interview, as well—70 percent of recruiters said information about a candidate found online could land him or her instantly into the “no” pile, according to a 2010 survey by Microsoft Research.
What social media habits land candidates in the potential “yes” pile? Creativity, well roundedness and not lying about educational and professional qualifications, according to an Oct. 2011 article from Forbes.
Students need not give up on social media entirely, nor do they need to keep their profiles on lock-down. Common sense and focusing on showing off your best qualities can go a long way in making a profile future career-friendly.
