THE MAJORITY OF people looking for new jobs do not care what employers will see on their social media pages, a new survey has found.

According to research by Hays Ireland, four out of five jobseekers who use networking sites said they do not care what a potential employer could find out about them through social media.

The survey also found that about 28 per cent of people looking for work did not make any changes to their privacy settings.

Despite the apathetic attitude of some jobseekers, employers have been influenced by what they have found on personal pages. A quarter of companies surveyed use social media to research jobseekers with about one per cent of recruiters saying they rejected candidates based on their social networking profiles.

Employers are most likely to turn to a candidate’s LinkedIn profile (87 per cent) but the majority also run a check on a potential recruit’s Facebook page (58 per cent).

Job hunters can be a little less mindful of what they tweet as only 15pc of employers check a candidate’s Twitter profile.

“It seems that most jobseekers are confident that they have nothing incriminating on their social media pages or that their privacy settings are sufficient, said Richard Eardley, Managing Director of Hays Ireland.

However, networking sites such as Facebook are constantly changing what they display so you need to keep regular checks on whether your privacy settings are satisfactory. Also the jobseekers who haven’t changed their settings just need to bear in mind that our survey shows employers are looking for them online so make sure that information supports what they have on their CV and there isn’t anything embarrassing out there.”

It seems that some people – whether they have a job or not – should take more care when deciding what to post on Facebook and other similar sites. Remember the woman who lost her job after she posted offensive things about her boss who was also her Facebook ‘friend’?

The survey, conducted by Hays recruitment company, received responses from 1,759 candidates and employers.