Social Media Statistics for Travel Nurses

Travel nurses love their jobs and the adventures that go along with traveling: discovering new places, meeting awesome new pals, and visiting the local favorite hot spots (bars, nightclubs, restaurants, etc.). But did you realize your online social profile could jeopardize your future opportunities? Don’t gamble on your job and travel prospects. These media stats will prove the importance of maintaining some basic professionalism on social media.

The next time you’re thinking about posting that photo where you’re on a bar dancing in a micro mini with random hotties pouring shots down your mouth, ask yourself if you’d want your employer to see that. Even if you have privacy settings on your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram accounts, any other person you tag in the photo may expose the image to all of his or her friends, and so on and so forth. Some settings even allow others to read the comments that your friends post. In a small community, such as the nursing community, it’s very easy for a questionable photo to be seen by someone you’d rather not see it, like your superior.

These statistics say it all:

CareerBuilder partnered with Harris Poll to conduct its annual survey on the practice of employers searching through social media sites to research not just prospective employees, but also current employees. The results are staggering…

1.  Over the last ten years, the number of employers who screened prospective candidates through social media searches has increased by 500 percent!

2.  60% of the employers have researched job candidates by browsing through social networking sites.

3.  49% of the employers discovered information online while that prevented them from hiring a potential candidate.

4.  More than 25% of these employers found content on these sites that resulted in either a firing, or a severe reprimand of a current employee.

5.  Of all of employers within the health care industry in the survey, a whopping 59% of them utilize social media to research prospective candidates!

Why are hiring managers trolling the online profiles of prospective employees?

According to the survey:

6.  53% said it’s to determine if the prospective employee has a professional online persona

7.  30% said it’s to see what others are posting about the prospective employee

8.  21% said they’re looking for a reason to not hire the prospective employee

What online content prevents an employer from hiring a prospective employee?

According to the survey:

9.  46% is due to provocative/inappropriate images/video, etc.

10.  43% is due to references to potential candidate using drugs or drinking

11.  33% is due to discriminatory statements involving religion/race/gender equality, etc.

12.  31% is due to negative statements about current or previous employer

13.  29% is due to subpar communication skills (misspellings, bad grammar, etc.)

What does this mean for travel nurses?

Obviously these statistics mean that if you want your employer to hire, and not fire you, you have to do more than interview well and perform your job proficiently. You also have to project an online image of professionalism. As a nurse, you are representing whatever medical facility hires you, and that doesn’t necessarily end when you are away from your job.

You need to:

•    Install privacy settings on all of your online accounts

•    Remove yourself from any posts friends may have tagged you in that are morally questionable

•    Post a public photo of yourself that has a polite/professional appearance (no daisy dukes, muscle shirts, or cigarettes dangling from your mouth, please!)

•    NEVER bad-mouth your current employer, or previous employers. Save these scathing comments for your diary, or for a private conversation with a trusted friend.

•    Think twice about posting your personal opinions (regarding politics, abortion, gay rights, immigration reform, etc.).

•    Highlight your strengths, especially on a work-related site such as LinkedIn.

•    Refrain from using vulgar language.

•    Don’t post scantily-clad selfies!

•    Proofread everything posted publicly so it is grammatically correct.

•    A good rule of thumb is to only post comments/images that you wouldn’t mind your grandparents seeing.

We get it: social media is a blast! But consider keeping your sensitive photos and activities on Snapchat where they disappear quickly.

© 2016. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.