Growing up, we were warned about digital footprints and the importance of thinking before we post. We were told to be careful of who we follow, keep our accounts private and that leaving offensive comments or posting ourselves drinking or smoking could destroy our future and our chances of getting a job.
Social media today has become the opposite – it is heavily intertwined with our lives, surpassing funny videos and trespassing into our employment. It has become so invasive that having no digital footprint can cost you a job.
The search for jobs among young people has become flooded with hundreds of thousands of applicants, some real and some made by artificial intelligence (AI). To avoid being lost in the shuffle, both post-graduate students and people searching for entry-level work submit applications to dozens of openings and are lucky to hear back from 10.
Oliver Wu, a student at the University of Michigan, shared in an article that he submitted 456 applications to internships over four months and received only three offers. On top of this, the process required him to submit anywhere from four to 20 applications a day.
As a result of this, an interview is a luxury these days. Most opportunities are filtered through AI before even reaching a real employee, and now, LinkedIn accounts are as valuable as portfolios and resumes. Many candidates may undergo a social media screening without even hearing back from the company. Employers can investigate your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and more without your knowledge. They aren’t only looking for reasons not to hire you, they are also looking at how you market yourself.
In a study conducted by ResumeGo, over 24,570 fake resumes were created and submitted to various job application sites, including Indeed and ZipRecruiter – a third of them having no LinkedIn profile listed, a third having a newly made account with very few posts and a third being full, active accounts. The call-back rate for applicants without LinkedIn was 71% lower than those with it.
This highlights two major problems with social media and the world today. First, there is a chance your application will be rejected without it and second, that people are not seeing these resumes and portfolios. For 82% of companies in a study by Resume Builder, AI is the first to sort through resumes and 42% of companies have AI scan social media as well.
The idea of watching what you post may stand the test of time, but there is now an additional challenge: if you do not have a professional profile online, your application is unfinished.
The culprit isn’t networking. Building a professional community was prominent in the past. The difference is that those you connect with now extend to people all over the world. It means there is more competition and higher standards alongside hiring managers who cannot keep up.
Additionally, there are plenty of valid reasons for someone to not be on social media – the need for it in the hiring process completely disregards those people.
As the pool of applicants rapidly grows, so does the lack of human hiring teams. Gone are the days of applying locally and having an interview. Social media has overthrown the old process and has replaced it with hundreds of thousands of people applying to limited positions through third-party websites that have bots screening you instead of people.
Social media has become far too important in the hiring process for privacy to be an option. As social media’s stance continues to grow alongside the work world, we will continue to have to publicly brand ourselves in the hopes of getting a job.
