There are many reasons why you should check your digital footprint before job searching. Done well, and it can work alongside your job application, complementing your CV and cover letter to showcase why you are a good fit for a role and company.
Leaving your online activity unmanaged could have a negative impact on the way an employer perceives you, resulting in you being rejected for a job before you’ve even got to the interview stage.
What is a digital footprint?
A digital footprint is the record of everything that you’ve done online.
This could be things you have actively posted, such as social media posts, comments you’ve made, and online portfolios, blogs or websites. But it’s important to know that it also includes your passive online activity, for example a friend’s Instagram post that you’ve been tagged in, or an article that a local newspaper publishes on its website about your sports club that includes a photo of you and your teammates.
When job searching, remember that all of this content has the potential to be seen by a future employer and that a hiring manager may use it to build up a picture of who you are and whether you’re somebody they would like to hire.
Do employers check your digital footprint and what do they look for?
When you apply for a job, your digital footprint may be checked as part of the screening process. This is the pre-interview stage of the job application, where an employer or recruiter will look through your application and decide whether they want to interview you for the position.
Remember that employers don’t actively look for reasons not to hire someone. By reviewing your online presence, a recruiter is doing their due diligence and making sure they’ve not missed anything before inviting you to an interview.
An employer might look for:
- The accuracy of the information you gave in your application. If you have a LinkedIn profile or an online portfolio, these platforms would be a recruiters first port of call when checking the details of your job application. It’s an easy way to verify the work history, skills and experience listed in your application.
- Whether your values align with the company’s. An employer will be looking for candidates that hold similar values to their business, as they’re more likely to fit with the company culture.
Have you applied for a job at a tech company that strives to be innovative? Perhaps you’re looking for a creative role and are applying to companies that think outside the box. Maybe the business spends time giving back to communities through fundraising and volunteering initiatives.
Whatever it is that a company values, your online presence might help them gain insight into what’s important to you, and whether you’d be a good match for them. - Your overall behaviour online. Before hiring you, a company will want to make sure that any public profiles you have don’t include inappropriate behaviour. This doesn’t mean that all your public profiles should be strictly professional, it’s absolutely fine to demonstrate your personality, hobbies and personal life. But anything that is illegal or unethical, such as posting discriminatory or abusive comments, will be taken into consideration and result in your job application being rejected.
- Insight into your personality. Your digital footprint is a great way for an employer to find out more about you. It’s a recruiter’s job to be curious about what kind of person they might be hiring. Checking your online presence enables them to see what you’re interested in outside of work, getting a better idea of who you are and building a picture of the person behind the job application.
- Digital expertise (if required for the role). One of the simplest ways for an employer to see whether you have digital skills is to check your online platforms. If you are applying for a job that needs digital skills, you can showcase these through keeping any work-related social media accounts or websites up to date.
How to check your digital footprint
Now that you know why you should check your digital footprint before job searching, here is how to go about doing it:
- Google yourself. Start off by searching your name and seeing what pops up, and then refine your search further by including things like your location, the name of your school, college or university, or your current or previous employer. Cover all bases by using other popular search engines, like Bing and Safari, as well as Google.
- Look through your social media channels. Look through any and all social media profiles that you’ve had, even if you don’t use them anymore. When checking, take a look at the posts you have been tagged in and any comments that you’ve made on other posts too.
- Check blogs/forums. Were you once a regular contributor to the comments section for an online blog or forum? There is a chance any contributions you made could still be found – even if they are several years old! Look to see if the platform is still going. If it is, check whether your profile is active and if an employer could identify that it belongs to you.
How to clean up your digital footprint
So you’ve had a thorough search of your online presence and decided it needs cleaning up before submitting your job application. But what’s the best way to do this?
- Delete anything that is inactive. Delete any inactive social media accounts, websites, and profiles that you found. For old accounts where you’ve forgotten the password, this might take a bit of time, but it’s worth it to ensure they can’t be found by a potential employer.
- Remove or privatise anything you wouldn’t want an employer to see. That Instagram carousel of your drunken eighteenth birthday celebrations might bring back fond memories, but it’s probably not the impression you’d like to have on a hiring manager. Our advice is to make any personal accounts, like TikTok or Instagram, completely private so that only your followers can see your posts.
If you are trying to grow your online following and don’t want to privatise your accounts, then remove anything that is visible on your profile that you wouldn’t want an employer to see.
Last but not least, untag yourself from anything inappropriate that others have posted. Lots of people forget to do this but it’s an important one, as a recruiter might find your tagged posts when browsing through your profiles. - Make sure any professional profiles are up to date. Now that you’ve deleted anything out of date and locked down your personal profiles, it’s time to turn your attention to your professional ones.
Update any online portfolios or websites that you have, ensuring that they demonstrate your most recent work. When it comes to social media, take a look at our articles on improving your social media presence while job searching and using LinkedIn effectively. - Stay on top of it. Avoid having to do another big audit of your digital footprint in the future by staying on top of your online presence in real time. Regularly update your professional profiles, untag yourself from anything new that might be deemed inappropriate, and delete any profiles that you decide to stop using rather than just leaving them inactive.
Now that you know why you should check your digital footprint before job searching, and how to clean it up, take a look at Unitemps’ other articles dedicated to job search tips.
This article was written by Becky Marrow.
Last updated on 23 January 2025
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