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Internships and other work experiences
Internships and other work experiences

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3.2 Tidying my digital footprint

The other aspect of social media that you need to be aware of is whether there are any posts/images from the past that could be detrimental to your work experience plans. Use your preferred search engine to look for your name and see what comes up. Grothaus (2018) offers the following tips for tidying up your digital footprint.

Box 1 Tips for tidying your digital footprint

  • Make your social media accounts private.
  • Review your timelines and remove any photos or comments that could cast you in a negative light.
  • Tags with your name can come up in online searches. Either untag yourself, ask friends to untag you or investigate how the platform allows you to disable other people from tagging you in the first place.
  • Find and close any old social media accounts. If you’ve forgotten what they are, try a service like Deseat.me which aims to help you find all your forgotten online accounts.
Grothaus (2018)

If you want to find out more about this topic, the OpenLearn course Digital literacy: succeeding in a digital world has some useful content, including the following video about how to improve your digital footprint.

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Video 2
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As you’ve seen, if used correctly, a social media presence can be beneficial to finding work experience. But once you’ve found the work experience you’d like to do, you’ll usually need to make an application of some kind. You’ll look at how to make yourself stand out in your application next.