How to Job Search on the New Facebook

October 7, 2011 RSS Feed Print

Heather R. Huhman

Facebook is constantly evolving, which can be frustrating for job seekers and employers alike. Although a few years ago you might have locked down your profile to keep it from an employer’s eyes, today you might opt to allow “subscribers” and share only industry-related content with them.

How will the new Facebook affect your job search? Joshua Waldman, author of Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies, provides five ways you can use it to your advantage:

[See The 50 Best Careers for 2011.]

The Timeline will help you tell your story. There’s been a lot of talk about storytelling recently. And Facebook has changed the wall to be more like a linear narrative as well. The timeline starts in the present and as you scroll down, i.e. back in time, your reader will be able to track where you were, what you did, and what you posted all they way back to your birth.

The risk is that if you don’t manage this timeline, someone might get the wrong impression about you and the life you’ve lived so far. So you should spend some time “starring” past posts that you feel better represent who you are. Each post can be set to “public,” which will allow Google to index it and recruiters to find it on background checks. So set posts to public only when you think they will add to your online reputation.

[See Are Women Less Happy in the Workplace.]

Subscribe to your profile and build your brand. If you do this, please be careful. Although subscribers can only see posts you share publicly, if you aren’t aware of this each time you post, you could make a mistake. As a job seeker, you should always be looking for ways to build your personal brand, and “subscribe” is a great way to do it. Just remember to post publicly a few times a week, and be sure these are posts that are relevant to your career and professional interest.

Interesting News is for the little things. On the right side of the Facebook wall now is a leaderboard that scrolls the latest updates from your network, called the “ticker.” This area is reserved for small things: “likes,” profile changes, or how many cats your retired uncle has in Farmville. The larger posts will stay on the wall under, “recent news”. As you build your brand remember to post both small news items and big news items to stay on both sides. For example, you might share a link with some comments as a big wall post, and then “like” an article on Mashable for the side ticker.

[See 7 Steps to Help You Land a Non-Profit Job.]

Face Recognition and better tagging options. Facebook has started to use some very powerful facial recognition software so that whenever a photo is uploaded with your face on it you will get tagged automatically (even if you are not in that person’s network). If you are tagged by someone out of your network, this will require your approval no matter what. The danger is that you may start to get more tag notices and may be spending more time untagging yourself. That is, until you adjust your timeline settings so that only tags with your approval appear. To set this up go to Privacy Settings > Manage How Tags Work > Change Settings > Profile (Timeline) Review and turn it on.

New privacy settings! I’m always telling people, get a handle on the privacy policy of any social network they join. This is usually about an hour of work, after joining, and then they can forget it. Not with Facebook. It seems users have to spend several hours a year revisiting their Facebook privacy page to make sure all is in order. If you haven’t been there recently, I highly encourage you to go to your Facebook Privacy setting area now and make sure you are OK with how people can connect with you and who can tag you.

What else should job seekers know about the new Facebook? Are there any new features you think will be particularly helpful in the job search? Voice your comments below.

Heather R. Huhman is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder & president of Come Recommended, a content marketing consultancy for organizations with products that target job seekers and employers. She is also the author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships (2011) and #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010) and writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets.

Tags:: Facebook,; careers

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Hello, i'm interested for this job activity. than you reply to my i.d.

Kanu Makwana(indiad-gujrat) of IN 6:25AM October 13, 2011

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RobersonJohnny of CT 2:28PM October 10, 2011

Dear Ms. Huhman,
This is a very interesting and detailed connection you have made between the changes that were newly made to Facebook and the effects it may have on job searching. As someone who is about to enter the job market I found it interesting as to how much social media, particularly Facebook, will affect my job search. Whether we like it or not, it seems that when any change to Facebook occurs, it makes the 5 o’clock news. Ms. Huhman, to answer your question one of the other features I have noticed is the friend acceptance procedure. Where you previously had the option of placing your friends under limited profile, you must now first accept them before you can choose to put them in a list or under “close friends” or “acquaintances”. Facebook provides lists for you to see what you have in common with this person so you can tell how you should categorize them. Familiarizing yourself with your privacy settings will allow you to make sure future employers or people within your industry have access only to the professional content of your profile. Would you agree this new feature is an advantageous?
Of the five ways that Joshua Waldman provides to use Facebook efficiently, I think the second, subscribing, and forth, face recognition, are most relevant. I believe that the advantages of subscribing to your profile and building your brand allow you to create a professional, marketable image that will attract potential employers. Furthermore, we have all heard and read stories about people losing their jobs over photos or posts their employers have seen on Facebook. With that said, I do not think the face recognition software now being used by Facebook is a beneficial change. I still prefer the previous method where you had to specifically tag a friend in a photo, rather than Facebook doing it for you. Not only do I think it is odd that someone outside of your network can tag you, but the possibility of the facial recognition software malfunctioning, and recognizing one face for another, can put you in a potentially compromising position with employers.

Georgia Dean of CA 7:46PM October 09, 2011