4 social media mistakes that can hurt your job search

Maybe you badmouthed a coworker or openly mocked your customers. In this case, remember the adage: The customer is always right. Remove the post immediately. Employers want a team player, a

professional, not someone who airs dirty laundry. This means give your social media activity a thorough audit, including older posts, comments, likes and photos. 3. BAD SPELLING, PLAGIARISM

Poor spelling and grammar aren’t as easy to scrub off your timeline. DETAILS MATTER. You may not realize you’re mixing up “their,” “there” and “they’re.” If you’re lucky, a potential boss

will be forgiving on leaving out punctuation or having miscellaneous typos. A 2021 survey from Jobvite, an Indianapolis-based software provider for recruiting and hiring, found that 45

percent of recruiters consider it a turnoff to see a candidate use poor spelling and grammar. That was No. 1 of its Top 5 with references to marijuana, alcohol consumption, politics and

pictures of body parts showing skin rounding out the list. INFORMAL ACRONYMS DON’T IMPRESS. Avoid using texting language in your social feeds. _brb_, be right back; _icymi_, in case you

missed it; and _smh_, shaking my head, are fine in a text. But if you’re posting something, especially on a professional platform like LinkedIn, use more formal English. Otherwise, it could

imply laziness. Twitter is particularly tough, because you have a limited number of characters to use. But in the future if you have a longer statement to make, you can write what you want

to say in a Word or other text document, take a screenshot and attach it to your tweet. Remember that posting something someone else wrote to social media is acceptable only if you give

credit. Passing off something as yours means you may be called out on it, and it could hurt your career. Cite the author, link to the article you’re quoting and attribute the photographer’s

work you’re posting. 4. OVERSHARING We all have friends who post everything on social media: their favorite latte foam art, a fun goat yoga class or every Pioneer Woman recipe ever

published. Their minute-to-minute photo libraries of vacation advertise an empty house back home.   What does this have to do with a new job? Sometimes things shouldn’t be shared on social

media, such as the amount of your bonus or information about a new marketing campaign not yet launched. You don’t want a potential employer to think you have a habit of posting private

company business for others to see.