Jessie Richards When you’re looking for a new job, consistency is one of the hardest things to get right.
Once an employer has viewed your resume and determined that they generally like you as a candidate, the next part of the process begins.
Let’s call it the informal background check.
Employers want to know that you are the person you say you are. One of the ways they screen for this is to see how your online persona jives with your resume. And while some organizations forbid this kind of pre-search, it’s best to assume it may happen and get your profiles in order.
One of the hardest parts of maintaining this consistency is just that most of us have varied interests that don’t necessarily easily relate to the jobs we’re applying for.
Hopefully, you’ve already found your career throughline. The next step to get your online persona into alignment is to relate your hobbies and interests to that same throughline when possible. When it is not possible to directly correlate the two, make sure that any hobby you are showcasing has some kind of consistency in itself. (In other words, we don’t want to share 7 separate hobbies here – UNLESS they can all be tied together under the same umbrella such as “reclaimed goods” or “Senior Crafts” etc.)
The featured image on this post is an abstract watercolor I painted of a boy on a round haybale at sunset. The watercolor relates to my gardening hobby which is already consistently shown on social media. My tagline “Growth in Every Season” also reflects this hobby. So even though I have shown a “new” hobby of painting, which might indicate to a first-time viewer a lack of consistency, (ie reliability), I have chosen to share a watercolor that solidifies my previous commitments.
So as you audit your social profiles in anticipation of finding a new position, don’t forget to ensure you’re signaling consistency and reliability! (…Or at least that you’re not signaling inconsistency and unreliability!)
