You're reflecting today on something an employer might already have done before they meet you: look at what is public about you online.

Public social media can help you network. It can also shape a first impression you never meant to give. In this lesson you will test your assumptions, mark up a sample footprint, study a workplace response, and write an honest Social Media Audit for your Digital Portfolio.

Before you audit anything, mark where you actually stand on each statement: Disagree, Not sure, or Agree.

Honesty matters more than a clever answer. You will come back to these ideas when you write your Social Media Audit.

Key terms for this lesson: digital footprint (what can be found about you online), public profile (content visible beyond your close circle), and networking (using visibility and contacts to open doors).

Read Jamie’s public footprint summary. It is invented, but the mix is realistic: useful networking signals sitting beside posts that could worry a careful employer.

Pick a label, then click the phrase it fits. When the class is ready, reveal the model and notice where you agreed and where you differed. Where you disagreed with the model is useful: that is practice at spotting opportunity and risk in the same feed.

Read Aoife’s case (invented) and mark the supervisor’s email for opportunity, risk, and curation cues. The analysis prompts are for thinking and brief class discussion only. They are not typed answers on this page.

Aoife’s case: the email before day one. Aoife has secured three days’ work shadowing at a regional leisure centre. Two days before she starts, the supervisor emails:

Looking forward to having you on site. Quick note from our side: we always take a light look at publicly available social media for people joining us, mainly for safeguarding and professionalism. Nothing alarming in your case. One older public post joking about “calling in sick for the laugh” might be worth taking down before Monday, and the stewarding photos from the 5K are a strong signal of the kind of young person we like on the team.

Aoife is relieved and annoyed at the same time. She had forgotten the joke post. She had not realised the 5K photos were doing useful work for her.

Think about (discuss, do not type here):

• What did the supervisor treat as a risk, and what did they treat as an opportunity?
• Does “public” change what feels fair to you here? Say why.
• If you were Aoife, what one-month curation rule would you set after this email?

Your only written product today: open or create Social Media Audit in your Strand 2.2 Digital Portfolio folder. Write a tight half-page under these three headings:

1. What a careful employer would find about you publicly today
2. What you would change and why
3. What you will actively curate in the next month (at least one concrete action you can check later)

This audit sits in Strand 2.2 as portfolio evidence of honest self-review before workplace engagement. It supports your placement preparation and can feed later Portfolio in Action work, even though it is not a named ALT on its own.

If you cannot safely check live accounts here, work from memory and from categories you already know are public. Honesty beats a perfect inventory. If almost nothing about you is public, write that down: what is locked, what you will keep locked, and why that is a deliberate choice still counts as an audit.

Today you reflected on public social media as both a networking tool and a source of employer first impressions.

• You placed your starting beliefs on private accounts, deletion, and whether employers should view public posts
• You labelled opportunity, risk, mixed signals, and curation needs on Jamie’s sample footprint
• You marked up a realistic workplace email to Aoife and discussed fairness, risk, and opportunity
• You wrote your Social Media Audit (Social Media Audit in Strand 2.2): what is findable, what to change, and what to curate next

Bring that audit into your placement preparation: the same honesty will matter when you check conditions, first contact, and how you present yourself on day one.