What the B#$@! word can do for your career (600 hits)
I was online this evening checking my social media networks. Usually, I’ll take some time to review profiles of people who have “friended” me online for one of several reasons: 1) I specialize in career branding so I like to review profiles with my “employer” hat on; 2) I like to know who I might be associating with; and 3) sometimes it’s just pure fun.
In my review, I ran across a young lady in high school who apparently is a connection of a current friend of mine. In the body of her profile, she made it very clear what she liked and didn’t like. One of her dislikes is “b—s that start stuff”.
You already know where I’m heading with this.
There are too many reasons for me to go into in one post as to why putting “I hate b—-s that start stuff”, among other quips, is not a good idea. I’ll just share three for sake of time:
1. Just like “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, what you share online will stay on online…for a looooong time. Once you’ve created a brand for yourself online, it can be very difficult and time consuming to enhance your reputation when it’s time to grow up. 2. You never know who might be your next employer. I’ve shared in a recent teleseminar the stats on how many hiring managers with large companies are now researching prospective hires online – almost 80% . What happens when I do my homework as an HR professional or hiring manager? This person would not be in my top candidate pool simply because she has shown her lack of professionalism and presented herself already as a potential “team member issue”. 3. It doesn’t endear you to people who “have some sense”, as my grandma says, or potential connections that might be able to help you. If the intent was for me to connect, obviously the person did not take time to review my profile to know what I do. I am not inclined to connect with this person to risk my own reputation as her writings would feed into my own communication stream.
Now, I don’t always catch these – especially on twitter or other high volume streams. But in this case, the young lady and I won’t have the chance to meet until and unless she cleans up her act. Imagine what decision her first prosepctive employer will make?
Maybe in about 10 years she’ll need a career branding strategist to help her with online reputation clean-up…we can reconnect then.
About the Author: Tanya Smith of Be Promotable shows ambitious working professionals how to get the promotion of their dreams. To get instant access to her free special report on surefire steps to getting the ideal job promotion stop by and visit http://www.bepromotable.com.
