Before posting pictures of your late-night revelry or complaints about your job on social media, think again – 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates before hiring, up significantly from 60% last year and 11% in 2006.
The national survey was conducted online on behalf of CareerBuilder by Harris Poll. It included a representative sample of more than 2,300 hiring managers and human resource professionals across industries and company sizes in the private sector.
Social recruiting is becoming a key part of HR departments – three in 10 employers have someone dedicated to the task. When researching candidates for a job, employers who use social networking sites are looking for information that supports their qualifications for the job (61%), if the candidate has a professional online persona (50%), what other people are posting about the candidates (37%) and for a reason not to hire a candidate (24%).
Employers aren’t just looking at social media – 69% are using online search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing to research candidates as well.
Of those who decided not to hire a candidate based on their social media profiles, the reasons included:
- Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs, videos or information: 39%
- Candidate posted information about them drinking or using drugs: 38%
- Candidate had discriminatory comments related to race, gender, religion: 32%
- Candidate bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employee: 30%
- Candidate lied about qualifications: 27%
- Candidate had poor communication skills: 27%
- Candidate was linked to criminal behavior: 26%
Your online persona doesn’t just have the potential to get you in trouble. Cultivating your presence online can also lead to reward. More than four in 10 employers have found content on a social networking site that caused them to hire the candidate. Among the primary reasons employers hired a candidate based on their social networking site were candidate’s background information supported their professional qualifications (38%), great communication skills (37%), a professional image (36%) and creativity (35%).
Debating removing your social media profiles while job searching? Think twice before you hit delete. Fifty-seven percent of employers are less likely to call someone in for an interview if they can’t find a job candidate online. Of that group, 36% like to gather more information before calling in a candidate for an interview and 25% expect candidates to have an online presence.
Just because you got the job doesn’t mean you can disregard what you post online. More than half of employers use social networking sites to research current employees. Thirty-four percent of employers have found content online that caused them to reprimand or fire an employee.
CareerBuilder offers some reasonable guidance regarding what may make interviewers put off by some candidates. Read the 
I once had to delay coming to work because my dog, Harry (pictured), injured his foot jumping off of my bed. While I didn’t call in “sick” and actually told my supervisors what was going on, it was an odd reason to be sure. (Even more odd considering he was fine the next day after I dropped a couple hundo at the vet, and he may have simply been in search of some painkillers to ease the stress he must be under from sleeping all day and listening to light rock radio.)
The results of a newly released survey from Careerbuilder.com seem pretty encouraging, at least in terms of the worst of the recession being over for the business sector. 
Oh, the agony of job searches. There’s the time-consuming process of developing a summary of your many accomplishments and attributes (as hours pass, you begin to wonder if you’ll be finished when Haley’s Comet reappears in 2062). Nail-biting interviews also take a toll (sadly, willing the telephone to ring won’t guarantee a job offer). Here’s the good news: Your best weapon in the “job search jungle” is something you have complete control over — your résumé.
CNN