At a postgraduate careers conference last July, Jas Dhaliwal, head of social media communities at internet security firm AVG.com, challenged our students to: "Be what's next!" Get a smartphone and your own domain name and make sure you are Google-able."
As I've spent the past 10 years making sure I'm not Google-able, this is a new way of thinking. We've all heard cautionary tales about people who lost their jobs because inappropriate photos turned up on Facebook. But social media has moved on, and there's no doubt that recruiters are increasingly viewing the internet as a source of positive information, rather than negative. Social media firm Reppler found that "a whopping 69% of recruiters have rejected a candidate based on content found on his or her social networking profiles"; but "an almost equal proportion of recruiters (68%) ... have hired a candidate based on his or her presence on those networks.". Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are now mainstream communications tools in a variety of sectors, and someone who has demonstrated that they can build and manage a professional web identity has a very marketable skill.
But how easy is it to maintain a firm line between your private identity and your public, professional identity on a social media profile? Lifestyle writer Sally Etheridge chats with many of her colleagues on Twitter, and finds that the informality carries risks. "It's very much an advantage if you fit into whatever is the norm within your industry's microcosm, but the moment you diverge from that, you're in trouble," she says. "It's not as simple as not swearing or not tweeting about being drunk - that's often considered completely OK within limits. In media, for example, being gay is probably fine, but mental illness is a complete no-go area."
This seems to be a major challenge of social media's new role in recruitment. If the line between public and private online lives becomes ever more blurred, how or where do we apply legislation which is designed to prevent discrimination based on sex, race, sexual orientation, disability, age, gender identity, or religion? With Facebook and Google+ insisting on real names to maximise revenue, maintaining separate identities online for different aspects of your life isn't necessarily straight-forward. And if it's tricky for professionals who are already established in their field and understand its particular culture, it's even harder for students and graduates who may not yet know what industry they'll be going into, and how welcoming it's likely to be to members of specific minority groups.
As university careers advisers, we already grapple with how and when students should disclose information which may be off-putting to certain employers. Many students from minority or disadvantaged groups are involved in relevant societies and activities, which can be used to demonstrate key skills to potential employers. I have been asked whether activities such as chairing the student LGBT group, organising an Islamic society social event, or campaigning for disabled students' rights should appear on a CV. There's no definitive answer, but a student making a traditional application can at least decide on a case-by-case basis, looking at the job description, the employer's status on equality and diversity, and the visibility of other members of their group in the organisation's hierarchy. And if the tactic you choose doesn't pay off with that employer, you can try a different one with the next.
A social media profile, in contrast, may be visible to a huge range of employers. As a student or a graduate job-seeker, you may not have made any firm and final decisions about the sector you want to work in and what information you want to disclose or keep private. And there is such a thing as too cautious. University should be a time of identity-formation, when students can espouse radical view, join political campaigns and engage with other students who are gay or trans, have disabilities or belong to minority ethnic groups or religions. Students who use social media to network with others on topics they are passionate about will generate a vibrant and effective media profile, and a sophisticated understanding of the possibilities of social media. By contrast, students who view social media purely as a professional tool and keep their Google profiles scrupulously neutral will miss out on many of its most exciting opportunities.
So how do we advise students? Should our social media clinics include some basic search engine optimisation techniques? How do recruiters who check social media profiles address equality and diversity? Does our equality legislation need updating if recruitment is moving on from the traditional CV or application form plus interview? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Mary Macfarlane is careers consultant at the University of Salford, and secretary of the university's LGBT staff network. The University of Salford was placed 21 in the 2012 Stonewall Top 100 Employers list.
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