Myth: People know i’m good at what do. I’m on LinkedIn, but Facebook is for fun and my client or employers are professional people; they don’t care about Facebook and my political rants/party images/raunch humor posted there.
Fact: Prospective clients and employers want to know who you are, and technology makes it much easier for them to find the answers. They want to find out everything they can about you in order to feel that they know you before they will invest their time and money on you. They CAN easily access your Facebook page, restricted or not.
Case study: A small firm is looking for a CPA. They have narrowed the choices down to three top candidates: all fit the criteria very well on paper and via interviews. The firm gets serious with who to make the offer to. But before they extend the offer to just one candidate, they want to really make sure they are making the right choice, so they search on the candidates online to see if there is anything that they are missing.
They found one candidate without a LinkedIn or Facebook presence, leading them to suspect the validity of the candidate.
They found the next candidate with a minimal LinkedIn profile and Facebook page. LinkedIn profile has a photo that looks like it was taken by a cell phone 5 years ago and not much of impressive endorsements from others. Facebook profile has a dark and blurred photo, with few other photos, activity, or friends indicated. They are left questioning: Who is this person? Why doesn’t s/he seem to have any friends? What is s/he hiding?
The 3rd candidate’s profiles had professional images on LinkedIn with very good endorsements from others, showing a healthy lifestyle on Facebook: nice posts and images, positive friends, likes running and participating in local events, postings are regular but not too frequent. These show the firm the qualities of a stable professional who they can work with, trust, and have long lasting professional and personal relationships with.
Who do you think received the offer?