Currently, your online presence holds just as much weight as a resume. Especially when it comes to searching for the next career opportunity. It is no secret that some recruiters take a look at your social media profiles and Google. Many use it to get an understanding of your capabilities and personality. According to a survey conducted by CareerBuilder, 70% of recruiters snoop on potential employees profiles. Another 39% of recruiters have not hired a potential employee based on their online presence.

There are some things to void when posting on social media:

• Heavy Alcohol Usage
• Drug Usage: Even if weed is legal where you live, this is the one thing I’d recommend scrubbing out of your profiles.
• Inappropriate Posts
• Excessive Foul Language

Before posting onto your social media accounts, think about what you are sharing and who is going to see it. The internet lasts forever. While privacy settings may protect your accounts, some things are never truly private.

There are ways you can take to strengthen the security of your personal Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Things to do on a social media clean up:

Facebook

• Who can see my stuff: You can switch the default public setting on your post. Look for the button “Who can see my stuff” and change the setting. This will also make your content only visible to friends. There is also the option to choose who will see your post by using the audience selector. This feature is commonly used when making a new Facebook status. The audience selector control remembers what you select. So unless you change your audience, all future posts will be continuously shared with the same people.
• Restrict past posts: If you have always made your Facebook posts public, you may now want to improve your security. By limiting old posts, it will prevent anyone outside of your friend’s list from seeing them.
• Timeline and tagging: These settings can be adjusted for who can see tagged photos of you and who can post on your timeline.
• Photos: Profile pictures and cover photos are made public by default. Check to see if your albums and mobile uploads are set to either private or public and set them to the settings you chose.
• Friends and Followers: Few things speak to your character as much as the company you keep, and that’s just as true online as it is in the real world. Consider changing settings on who can access your friends’ list.

Twitter

• Protect my Tweets: By default, your Tweets are all public. Regardless, you can select the “Protect my Tweets” option. This button will make all your Tweets private and only visible to followers you’ve accepted.
• Turn off location: Twitter gives you the option to add your current location to your Tweet, but it isn’t a default setting.
• Discover ability: Disabling this option will prevent anyone that has your email address or phone number from searching and finding your Twitter account.
• No tagging in photos: Like Facebook, turning off this setting stops other users from tagging you in a photo they post.

Instagram

• Account is Private: Making your account private is the easiest way to clean up your Instagram.
• Social media doesn’t have to be a negative thing. There are ways that you can use it to your advantage and boost your chances of gaining employment or clients if you are a freelance worker.

Now don’t be too hard on yourself when you are going through a social media clean up. Recruiters don’t expect you to be an angel of perfection. Therefore, it is okay to have pictures of yourself enjoying a beer/cocktail with friends or sharing a well educated political idea. Every decent employer will know that these are your social media profiles, and what you do with your weekends are ultimately your own business. They still are looking for a degree of confidence in your professionalism, maturity, and overall character. If you don’t already behave cautiously and conscientiously online, now is the time to get into the habit.