How your Digital Citizenship Effects your Job Opportunities

As social media grows and starts to become a part of everyday life, it has also become such an impact on employment opportunities. Because of this it is important to maintain a good digital footprint to allow for more job opportunities to come your way. In 12 Tips For Students To Manage Their Digital Footprints, it gives tips and tricks that can help you present yourself in a professional manner on social media platforms.  One of the tips it gives is to not overshare on anything you wouldn't want the world to know because it could get you into trouble. Keeping your accounts professional and concise will help you to stay out of sharing anything that may exasperate those who come across your profile. Another tip it gives is to Google yourself, this way you know what information is out there about you. Because chances are when you go to apply for a job they will end up Googling you, and this way you want know what they're going to find when they do search your name. When I searched my name in Google, nothing came up in the search results. Hopefully in the future as I build my professional network online, when people search my name all my professional social media accounts will show up. 

As I said before, one of the ways to maintain a positive digital footprint is to not overshare on your accounts. The article, How to Prevent Your Social Media Accounts from Oversharing, goes more into depth on how to keep your accounts more private. One of the ways it mentions is turn off your read receipts, this allows you to still be able to update your profile without letting others know if you have read their direct messages that were sent to you.. This lets you preserve your privacy and still be able to be active on your accounts.  I personally do not have my read receipts on, because it allows for me to not feel pressured to answer a message right away and still be active online. Another way is to keep your location turned off, that way everyone doesn't know your every move and where you are all the time. This allows you to keep what you do private and keep you from oversharing your every move. I have my location turned off because I do not want people to not know my every move, not only for oversharing but for safety reasons too. If you have your location for your every move for the public to see, I find that to be very unsafe. It also suggests limiting the people who can see what you post, this means keeping your accounts private and only accepting those you know. Personally, all my social media accounts are private and I only allow people that I know to follow me. 

It's important to know what employers are looking at when scoping out your social media. The article, What Recruiters look at When Stalking Your Social Media, explains just what employers are looking at for each social media platform. For Twitter it says that they look at who you are following and what content you Tweet. On my Twitter, I follow organizations and specific people in my desired career field, education. I also only Tweet content that pertains to education, so if an employer would look at my Twitter it would be beneficial. For Instagram, the article says employers look at who you follow and what pictures you post. Personally for my Instagram, I only follow my friends and family and my account is private so all my followers are also friends and family. As for what I post, I only post pictures with family, friends, and my hobbies. This wouldn't harm my chances of getting a job because I present myself in a positive way and come off as very friend and family oriented. 

In the book Light, Bright, and Polite for Professionals, John Ochs gives advice as to how to portray yourself on social media and how it can influence your reputation and in return your chances of getting a job. In chapter two, Ochs talks about ways to use social media properly to boost your reputation and also how to respond to negative posts that you see. One of the examples Ochs gives in his book is how when he was running for the city council he had a woman who was asking very rude and obnoxious questions at the debate. Instead of answering with a snarking remark, Ochs kept his composure and tried his best to answer her question respectfully. Although this didn't change that woman's attitude towards him, Ochs won over the vote of another women because she liked how he handled the situation. Ochs says, "There is a key lesson I learned here: How you respond to people is more important than what they say to you". Taking this into consideration, this applies to how you present yourself online. The point Ochs is trying to make is when responding to negative comments and posts online, it is important to keep composure and professionalism because it is out there for everyone to see and it can build your reputation in either a positive or negative way. I will take this into consideration when interacting with others online in the hopes that I will build a positive reputation that future employers can consider during the hiring process.

Overall, there are many tips and tricks to follow that can help you keep a positive digital footprint. These are important to follow because many jobs now a days will look at your social media platforms and take them into consideration when deciding to hire you or not. I plan to use this helpful suggestions to build my digital footprint to ensure I have a good reputation when I apply for a teaching position.