Should you clean up your social media before a job interview? In Italy, nearly 1 in 10 candidates edits their profiles during the recruiting process
A recent study by the recruiting platform Indeed has sparked considerable debate, revealing that one in four Italian candidates modifies their profiles on platforms like Instagram and TikTok before a job interview. The study, conducted on a sample of 500 candidates and 500 companies, also highlights that 73% of the employers involved in the recruiting process check candidates' social media accounts.
Indeed, today job hunting has become such a demanding and time-consuming activity that, compared to a few years ago, every small advantage can genuinely make a difference in the recruiting process, especially for those working in a big city – where the pool of opportunities is quite large and competition is fiercer.
Looking for a job has always been considered a stressful activity in itself, but it's also true that in recent years the recruiting process has become genuinely more complex. Once a candidate is shortlisted for a given position, the path that follows almost always involves several interviews, sometimes three or more, and not infrequently psychological, aptitude, or logic tests, along with exercises and assignments to complete.
What is Gen Z's relationship with work like
@pasha Gen Z healthy work boundaries #comedy #genz I think the workplace is rоtten right to the core - Pasha Grozdov
In the research conducted by Indeed, 38% of Gen Z candidates said they had modified their profile before applying for a given position, compared to 17% of Generation X. This is a fairly significant figure, especially in light of the different relationship younger people reportedly have with work, according to experts: greater attention to flexibility, a better balance between personal and professional life, and less willingness to accept rigid hierarchies, long hours, and work occupying an excessive amount of space in daily life.
The experience of the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 led many young people to question certain aspects of their working life and to seek positions that guarantee a better quality of life. This shift, however, was also driven above all by a more precarious and competitive job market, and by growing distrust that one's profession can actually guarantee better economic and social conditions.
And LinkedIn?
Among the various portals used for job hunting, LinkedIn remains one of the main points of reference – in Italy and in many other countries. The platform offers various paid features and, despite the company not publishing data on the number of subscribers, the premium version is genuinely widespread among job seekers – with no small monthly costs.
Companies themselves use LinkedIn's paid version to give visibility to their job listings and to get in direct contact with the profiles they consider most suitable. Publishing a job ad, in fact, is only the first step companies take in the recruiting process: in most cases, so-called "headhunters" (those who identify potential candidates for their organizations) try to find the profiles best suited to a given position directly on LinkedIn and message them privately – something LinkedIn Premium also allows with people outside one's own network.
LinkedIn is often criticized because, over the years, it seems to have become increasingly similar to a traditional social network rather than a portal dedicated to job hunting, fueling the idea that it serves relatively little purpose. Moreover, more and more of the content circulating on the platform is created using artificial intelligence – a phenomenon that has partly undermined the social network's own identity. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is estimated that last June around 40% of posts published on the platform and roughly 30% of comments were written with AI.
The portal, however, remains an effective tool for getting noticed by headhunters, especially when one's profile is deliberately clear, up to date, and well curated; it remains less useful, on the other hand, for those at the start of their career, with a professional path that's hard to categorize, or working in sectors where job opportunities still circulate mainly through word of mouth.
