Social media honeypot

This infographic from the social media monitoring firm Reppler illustrates statistically how recruiters screen job seekers based on their social media presence. LinkedIn figures in the mix, but personal sites (Facebook, Twitter) loom larger in recruiters' scrutiny.

The statistics in and comments on the graphic reveal some obvious points and some larger points:

• It's a Put Yourself Out There World! BTW, your drunk, naked, racist, cretinous, provocative, impolitic, uncool, weakness-revealing posts will haunt your future. 
• Many social media users don't know how or haven't made the effort to protect their privacy using settings or pseudonyms. Read the directions. Think before you act. 
• In the latest employer's market in the history of the world, employers are using the latest means to sort the wheat from the chaff. The march of history and all that. 
• The architects of social media, for good or ill, have succeeded in collapsing our far-flung relationships into a small town. No secrets, nowhere to hide. Scarlet Lettersville.

As a communications professional I'm very much in the minority among peers because I've declined to get on Facebook and Twitter. This has disqualified me from consideration in several marketing jobs, particularly in B2C. Still, it's a small price to pay for a little privacy and the editorial gratification of denying eternal life to those myriad random expressions, half-thoughts, pure piffle and TMI blunders that (who knew?) are actually being scrutinized.

A final point on an earlier post on editorial best practices in infographics: Note that our subject graphic has both a title and a credit line embedded in the artwork, ensuring its editorial integrity as it gets republished here and numerous elsewheres in the behavioral archive of our world that we call the internet.