Social media is a powerful tool for job searching and networking, but if you aren’t careful, the way you use it can put your future career at risk. In this episode, Brandon, Jerry, and McKinley spill the tea about managing your digital footprint and show you common pitfalls to avoid when creating an online presence that is both professional and authentic to who you are. Pull up a seat and listen to the end of a Career Center dad joke!
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McKinley Hatch
Welcome to Career Cafe, a podcast to help you thrive in the professional world. Today's episode is on discovering your digital impact, how your social media presence can jeopardize job opportunities. Joining us today, we have Brandon Street, Jerry Ross and myself, the moderator, and special guest, Mackenzie Jenkins. Mackenzie, why don't you introduce yourself?
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Mackenzie Jenkins
Hi. So I'm Kenzie. I work in the OR, I guess Mac You guys call me Mac, whatever you want to call me. I work in the career center as an internship coordinator, and I work with students a lot. Do internship prep appointments and run the professional internship program and a new program that's coming this semester called SUU Career Academy.
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Mackenzie Jenkins
So lots of fun stuff.
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McKinley Hatch
Awesome. Thanks for joining us today. Mackenzie or Mac or Kenzie, whatever we call you, we do call her all of them. Kenzie is awesome and she also helps with part of our social media strategy in our office. And she's an awesome model for our videos and our roles. So give us a follow as you career center. Just saying, let's jump into your digital footprint and how that matters.
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McKinley Hatch
So why don't we talk about that?
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Brandon Street
Yeah, so, you know, this is increasing all the time with employers, right? And the digital footprint. And I've seen as high in statistics as 75, 80% of employers will check social media as their hiring individuals through the application process. So this is this affects all of us. It's important to make sure that we are representing ourselves well and on with our digital footprint on social media and make sure we have the right outlets for employers to see us in that regard in a professional manner.
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Jerry Ross
Absolutely. And you know, from a recruiter standpoint, I know that I would never use social media to determine whether I was going to hire a candidate. But if I had questions, it may give me information that would answer some of those questions. And, you know, part of how we determine whether people fit. Do you meet the skills and qualifications for this job?
00;02;12;00 - 00;02;40;23
Jerry Ross
Can you add and culturally do you fit? And I feel at times the social media presence helps us determine a couple of those things. And if I had one single piece of advice, it would be think before you click right, just sleep on it, do something, make sure this is going to represent you, not just today and who you want to be today, but once you post it last forever, whether you take it down or not, and make sure that we're aligning yourself with where you may want to be five, ten years down the road.
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Brandon Street
Yeah, I think though you said and you said that you didn't make decision on the hiring that I think a lot of employers would say that, but I bet they would say they've made decisions not to hire based on social media, though.
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Jerry Ross
Absolutely. Yeah. Bias.
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Mackenzie Jenkins
Yeah. One thing I was just thinking about is, you know, the way that social media has grown is that I think we've all been become more comfortable in sharing things on social media, which I think is really awesome in a way. But you also need to think about how that's going to affect certain things in your life. And you know, it's great to be comfortable but be cautious of what you're saying, what you're commenting, not not just what you're posting, but what you're commenting on.
00;03;23;02 - 00;03;39;13
Mackenzie Jenkins
Other people's things. Because it it can and will affect you if it's controversial or even if, you know, somebody just has a different opinion than you, that that can still affect things in your job. So just be careful.
00;03;39;13 - 00;03;56;18
Brandon Street
There's stories of people who have posted things they did while on the job. Later in the day, things that happened that ended up costing them the job. And so, I mean, this can be something cost you getting a job, but also cost you a job while you're working. Right. And so we've got to be aware of those things.
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McKinley Hatch
Yeah.
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Jerry Ross
I've had a situation, too, where someone called into work and I called someone else in to come cover for that person. Hey, what happened to person A on, you know, can't get into it. They're just things are going on I can't be in today. And then later that person brings me a phone and shows me pictures of person A at the bar the night before.
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Jerry Ross
And it's just so many things that they put out there that they think I'm just sharing it for my friends. But that person didn't have a job at the end just because of the things that they post. There's just so many.
00;04;27;26 - 00;04;54;11
McKinley Hatch
I think keeping in mind we can we can all understand if something is going to blow up on social media, right? Like before it's even posted, you know it whether or not someone might see differently than you on this topic. So just be mindful of that. I always laugh at, you know, influencers or somebody that posts a, you know, topic that's maybe controversial.
00;04;54;12 - 00;05;17;23
McKinley Hatch
Yeah, I'm like, well, word of it laughs. Or I'm like, Hello? I don't know. My brain stopped, but like controversial topics and then they're all in the comments at the commenters, you know like, well, this and that. I'm like, you should have known this is coming. Like, you know, they they do know and they whether or not they want to or not, there are some out there that just do that for fun and, you know, on purpose.
00;05;17;23 - 00;05;40;27
McKinley Hatch
But when you're looking for a job, this is a whole different story. And you want to be careful about what you're saying. And I love what Kenzie said about the comments. Like a lot of people just think the post, you know, but someone if if you commented something that upset somebody, they will remember that forever. They will not that's not going to, you know, just go by their memory like they're going to remember that about you.
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McKinley Hatch
And and so just being careful about that, we've kind of started talking about pitfalls of social media, but I wanted to bring that up, especially in the topics that are controversial, like politics, for example, being careful. But let's talk about those pitfalls to avoid.
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Brandon Street
Well, first of all, yeah, you want to avoid any type of a polarizing conversation on social media, especially if you're looking for a job, Right? I mean, we know that employers make decisions based on some of these things that we talked about this early on in the podcast is how many employers are looking at this. But but I think it's important for us to understand they don't have to tell us why they didn't necessarily hire us so they can look at social media and see this If they don't believe the same way we do that trust that we talk about.
00;06;27;04 - 00;06;41;20
Brandon Street
I always use this word trust to hire. But when I see something that may be differ from my views and not just different, but vastly different and maybe even angry in a sense, then I may not want to hire you. You know what I mean? I may make some judgments on you that and that employer may never tell you that.
00;06;41;20 - 00;06;47;15
Brandon Street
They may never say, Well, we didn't hire because of this reason. Right. And but you cost yourself the job through that process.
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Jerry Ross
And in my very early days of recruiting, our application process had a long laundry list of questions that we ask. And then as the years went by, questions got deleted, deleted, deleted, and basically we were told to no longer write notes and do some different things. And basically you just pick the best qualified candidate. And I pushed back a little bit and I said, you know, leadership, why are we doing this?
00;07;10;28 - 00;07;32;24
Jerry Ross
Because it's more difficult at my level to establish who my most qualified candidate is. And the response was, we're giving them too much opportunity to prove our decision, right? So the things about social media, right, when you get to candidates and you research one and one has information on there that doesn't culturally align with your business, prove it right.
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Jerry Ross
You make the decision, but can you prove it? And the social media thing, it's it's hard for an applicant to prove I was judged against by this. But you can be and really, you know, absolute highlights who you are. I also want to talk a little bit about stages, right? Like I did an appointment with a student and help them create their LinkedIn account.
00;07;52;09 - 00;08;11;07
Jerry Ross
And I said, Feel free to connect with me. You're welcome to look at mine, walk through some of the stages, and then I come on to my LinkedIn a few days later and there's a fantastic pizza. A picture of her. I love pizza, right? So she didn't recognize the appropriate place. She was. That's a great Instagram, TikTok something.
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Jerry Ross
But LinkedIn isn't the place for your pizza picture. Yeah. And making sure that we're using the appropriate network appropriately.
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McKinley Hatch
I'm getting hungry now.
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Brandon Street
I know. Yeah, me too.
00;08;21;01 - 00;08;43;20
McKinley Hatch
Pizza. Let's talk about. We've talked about a lot about the pitfalls, Right. Let's talk about how social media can be positive. I love that Mac had said or Kenzie. Now I'm realizing I'm like, you know, saying both or, you know, whatever. I love that you said that it can be a positive thing and it can be a good space, you know, an online community.
00;08;43;20 - 00;08;52;27
McKinley Hatch
But leveraging social media for growth in your career, we've talked about LinkedIn, so let's dive into that further.
00;08;52;29 - 00;09;09;21
Brandon Street
So, yeah, I mean, when we talk about it being a positive thing, what a great way to network right? Like this. These are tools designed to network with individuals a lot, you know, who are in your circle of influence, some who may not be, but but you could I, you know, I coach individuals to use this as a means of networking.
00;09;09;21 - 00;09;28;19
Brandon Street
If you're looking for a job that people know you are. But I always say let them know what you're looking for, not just, hey, I'm looking for a job, and then they get back to you and tell you a great job. And then you say, No, not that one. So, so, so give them some guidance. But but again, this can be a great place to to contact people and network for opportunities, which we know is the number one way to get a job.
00;09;28;19 - 00;09;39;12
Mackenzie Jenkins
So I have a question and say I'm applying for a job in the career center. Okay, I'm not following any of you on Instagram. Right. Should I send a friend request to Brandon?
00;09;39;12 - 00;09;53;12
Brandon Street
And you know, that's a really good question. You know what? Even if I see someone who sends me a friend request applying, it may be like, you know what? Yeah. And so that is a good question. I don't think on your personal ones, like if you were to send me one on LinkedIn, I'd be like, Yeah, let's do, let's connect.
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Brandon Street
But if you were to send me one on Facebook, I'd be like, What is going on?
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McKinley Hatch
I don’t even follow you on Instagram and we've worked together three years and.
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Jerry Ross
I want to call you out about that. Our social media platform doesn't like any of us, can we? I'm just messing around.
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McKinley Hatch
Well, I don't follow you guys.
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Jerry Ross
Don't I don't follow you doing separating. I enjoy separating work from home to a certain extent. Like there's a good part of that. And in the LinkedIn thing also, I am a consumer, right? So I don't contribute much. I don't post many things, I don't put many of my ideas out there, but I love to gather contacts that I can use at a later date.
00;10;33;28 - 00;10;56;03
Jerry Ross
So we all have different ways and some of us contribute more and like to post things in different things and you're great and do that. Some of us like to gather the information in the contacts so that at a later date I can leverage this into the next opportunity or help others with theirs. Where I've seen people that have been looking and I've reached out and said, Hey, I'd love to help in the way that I can, but I mostly use LinkedIn as a consumer.
00;10;56;03 - 00;11;08;29
Jerry Ross
I consume it for data. I use it to manage previous contacts and people that I can get a relationship later or help them find the next one. But I consume a lot of data off of LinkedIn as opposed to contributing.
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McKinley Hatch
Yeah, it's definitely not everyone's thing, right? Like I definitely struggle and I do social media. That's my job. You know, I manage social media and yeah, LinkedIn is not one of my best, You know, I definitely work on that personally, but I think a lot of people can, right?
00;11;27;10 - 00;11;41;26
Brandon Street
I do. And I, I would really recommend any of our listeners to get if you don't have a LinkedIn account, I think that is your avenue for social media. If I'm going to have an employer look at me, what do I want? I'm looking at I'm looking at my, you know, Instagram or my Facebook or my MySpace.
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McKinley Hatch
Yes, I’m just kidding a top eight.
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Brandon Street
MySpace, right.
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McKinley Hatch
Woah whats MySpace? No I am just kidding
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Brandon Street
Of our listeners definitely will not know what MySpace is, but but do I want them looking at those things or do I want to be driving them and which I intentionally do on my resume, drive them to my LinkedIn where they see me as a professional, they see what others say about me, they see the professional content that is me, right?
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Brandon Street
Because they are looking and they want to look and I'm inviting them to do that. But just on the platform I've created for them, right?
00;12;10;17 - 00;12;38;04
McKinley Hatch
Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much for tuning in today listeners, and make sure to go create a LinkedIn account. I mean, MySpace. No, I'm just kidding. Make sure it’s LinkedIn and also give us a follow on our social media accounts. SUU Career Center, that's our Instagram handle. So make sure you give us follow. Tune in next week for we're going to be talking about mastering the art of professionalism, navigating emails, phone calls and voicemails.
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McKinley Hatch
It's going to be a really good one. So tune in and we're going to sign off, of course, with one of our Dad Jokes by Jerry.
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Jerry Ross
Do you guys know I used to be a professional fisherman?
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Brandon Street
No, I. No, I did.
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Mackenzie Jenkins
Yeah, I believe it.
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Jerry Ross
I discovered I couldn't live on my net income.
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Brandon Street
the net income.
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McKinley Hatch
I love that. We turn to, like, all like vampires that's there at the end. That was fishermen. Is that what you're fisherman?
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Jerry Ross
Yes.
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McKinley Hatch
All right. I love it. We're coming up on October. Hey, thanks for tuning in.
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Unknown
We'll see you next week.