So, I sound like an old person, but in this day and age your online footprint is one of the most important parts of your personal brand. A recent survey of graduate recruiters in Australia found that 48% of employers used social media activity to assess the personality, character and cultural fit of applicants. Everything you contribute online forms part of your digital footprint and it’s an ever-growing entity that can be hard to manage.

Before you start applying for graduate jobs, take a look at the following tips to manage your digital footprint.

Google yourself. Are you sitting comfortably? Pour yourself a stiff drink and see what comes up. It might be the push you need to review your privacy settings.

On that note, review your privacy settings. If you want to use Facebook to rant about uni/an ex-partner/the service you received at breakfast the other morning, maybe lock those privacy settings down. Also, double check the photo tag settings…make sure your drinking buddy can’t tag you in photos that will show up on your timeline.

Consider your personal brand before posting. You may want to keep some of your social media accounts open for your brand. A curated Instagram account can work as a great portfolio if you are an arts student, you may want your industry contacts to be able to read your blog, and there isn’t much point to LinkedIn if your future employer can’t access it. For these accounts, it’s important to consider the content you post online, the language you use and the photos you post.

Use a professional email address. Again, I may be showing my age, but upgrade your high school Hotmail account to an a professional email address. Let’s be honest, [email protected] isn’t getting that job.

Finally, check out our workshop schedule and look out for our personal branding workshop – we one run every semester.