The traditional application process as it once stood is no longer, with massive amounts of resumes and cover letters from hopefuls inundate colleges and businesses. With larger volume coming in, each transcript or carefully crafted applications gets less time – and, crucially, less time to stand out and distinguish itself in the midst of all the similarly worded others.
According to a recent Business Insider report “the average global Internet user spends two and a half hours daily on social media, and information on their activity — gathered under the catch-all ‘big data’ — reveals a great deal about what makes them tick.”’ This fact has now become the crux for the future of the job application extravaganza; Jobvite indicates that over 90% of corporate recruiters are inclined to look at a prospect’s social media profile.
“Researchers from Old Dominion University in Virginia recently found that looking at Facebook profiles for job performance indicators can be just as – if not more – accurate as self-reported personality tests.” For university admissions, googling and/or facebooking an applicant is becoming more popular.
However, using the information gathered from social media is not only considered a negative thing anymore – fears ending with users making their profiles inaccessible for the general public in larger numbers – but is also used to court prospective students and find good matches. Now some suggest that shutting down a Facebook profile to keep certain less-than-flattering pictures private is no longer the way to go, but rather to have a Facebook profile stand as a personal SEOed ambassador and let every recruiter see a personal side of the anonymous application they have in front of them.
(Image Credit: Jason Howie)
