You’re in the job market, resume’s looking good and you’re now waiting for the recruiter to call. Chances are they’re busy checking out your online presence. Did you know that 98% of recruiters will view your LinkedIn profile before they meet you? What’s more it’s standard for hiring managers and recruiters to check out your Facebook and Twitter profiles as well. Yes…the tech savvy are now using sophisticated technology to piece together a bigger picture of your profile. Sounding a tad too George Orwellian?

Here’s how it works…

When you look at two or three status updates on your social media profile, they may tell one story, but when you look at all of them in a timeline, they may paint a completely different picture. Are you an over-sharer, whiner, arguer, boundary-crosser, or one-upper person when posting online? What’s your personality? Are you open, creative, inventive, logical or easy going?

Curious to know if the image I’d like to project was aligned with the one I was actually projecting, I tested the following links and found FiveLabs fun (you all passed with flying colors), MyLife and Spokio dished more but required a fee to unlock a deeper dive, and my email address alone had Google bringing up page upon page of past blog posts.

What will you discover about you?

FiveLabs: Enter the link to your Facebook profile on this site and Five Labs will analyse the language of your posts to predict personality, and it is surprisingly accurate. Based on modern psychology, Five Labs ranks you on five personality traits – agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, extroversion and openness. Their methodology is based on the world’s largest language and personality study, conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

MyLife: Searches the internet to find all your public profiles, then presents the uncovered information. Some info may be sensitive in nature, and not the type you may want a prospective employer to see. For the paid version, you have more options such as viewing the online records the service found, who’s been searching for you on Google, and much more. As well, it removes sensitive information for you if you have their paid version of the service.

Spokeo: This is a people search engine that scours the internet, aggregating data from many online and offline sources. A Spokeo search returns phone numbers, address, email and photos. US only at this time though the site revealed a surprising amount of information on my profiles but again required a fee to unlock.

Google: Most of us know we should search our name on the search engine, but have you ever searched your phone number and email address to see what comes up? You might be surprised by what you see.

Image: From James Minchin’s behind the scenes photos of Mad Men – http://www.thefoxisback.com

Extract from Career + Work Blog | Right Management
‘Cleaning your Digital Footprint in Preparation for a Job Search’
Posted: 25 Sep 2014 (US)