When it comes to Facebook and other social media, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. At least that’s some career expects are saying.

Job applicants long have known that what they post on social networks can hurt their chances of getting hired. But a lack of a social media presence also can be an obstacle.

“If you don’t have a social media page, are you now identifying yourself in a way that suggests you’re outside the mainstream?” said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement firm.

In today’s world, where many people are permanent job seekers, “social media presence is basically a must in managing one’s career,” he said. “Not doing so will cause many to question why and will raise red flags about your candidacy. What do you not what people to know? What are you hiding?”

“And if you don’t have an online identity, companies can’t find you,” said Challenger.

Dennis J. Garritan, a managing partner of private equity firm Palmer Hill Capital and an adjunct professor at Harvard Business School, didn’t take quite such a hard line. He said his consideration of social media presence when assessing applicants depends in part on their age and the kind of work they do.

“Not all social media are equal,” Garritan said. “LinkedIn is required. If they are not on LinkedIn, I’m wondering why not, because that is the vehicle for professional networking.” Twitter is important, too, he said, for serious job candidates.

 “I like to get to see how people think on their feet,” Garritan said. “How they react to situations spontaneously is a highly prized commodity in the workplace.”

So he said age might be a mitigating factor.

For people 50 or older, for example, he said not tweeting is understandable, as they may be unaccustomed to the technology. If a 40-something doesn’t use social media, it would be a little worrisome, but not critical.

“But if a job candidate is a Millennial and doesn’t have Facebook, you’re wondering, is this person with it, or out of it? It’s certainly a question to ask in an interview,” Garritan said. And for people who work in marketing and public relations, “they have to be invested in social media to be state-of-the-art professionals.”

Certainly there are valid reasons for job candidates to avoid social media, said Garritan, who has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology. And, he noted, there other ways to evaluate candidates’ social skills, including old-fashioned resumes.

 “Profiling is bad science, especially when done by people from an armchair,” he said.

Surprisingly, an August 2011 survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management concluded that “only a small number of organizations are using online search engines and social networking websites to screen job candidates.”

Only 18 percent of organizations indicated using social networking websites. Conversely, 71 percent have never used these websites to screen job candidates or used them in the past but no longer do so.

But Garritan and other human resource professionals were skeptical of those results.

“Every company I know does it,” said Garritan.

Accenture, the management consulting company, aggressively recruits through social networks, said John Campagnino, senior director of global recruitment. But he added that if a serious job candidate has limited or no social media presence, it would in no way hurt his or her chances or being hired.

Ed Hannibal, a partner at Mercer, an international human resources management consulting firm, had a similar take. He said he couldn’t comment on company policy, but he and his immediate staff have used social media tools to recruit and prescreen prospective candidates, though he said that he is not on Facebook himself.

“I’m so connected personally,” through numerous professional groups on LinkedIn and a BlackBerry, “I didn’t feel the need.” He surmised others may feel the same way.

“There are a lot of factors why individuals may not take part in social media,” Hannibal said. In cases where there is no social media presence, he might rely more heavily on references. “It would not necessarily make or break why I interview or recruit someone,” he said.

 “I don’t necessarily think this is a red flag,” said Hannibal, referring to candidates who avoid social networking. “You can’t jump to conclusions.”  

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Lots of you aren’t tweeting, facebooking or linkedin-ing, and that could spell doom for your job search.

Today, a majority of recruiters are using social networking sites to find job candidates so your aversion to these cyber communities may end up keeping you out of the happily-employed community.

According to a survey by Jobvite released this week, 92 percent of recruiters said they now use social media to find talent, up from 89 percent last year, and 83 percent in 2010. And the most compelling data to come from the study, which polled more than 1,000 human resource and recruiting managers online this month, was that 73 percent of those surveyed said they hired a new employee via social media.

Jobvite

Percentage of recruiters using social networking sites to find talent.

“We continue to see social recruiting gain popularity because it is more efficient than the days of sifting through a haystack of resumes,” said Dan Finnigan, president and CEO of Jobvite, a recruiting technology company.

When it comes to the particular social networking sites, LinkedIn remains king among recruiters with 93 percent of respondents saying they use the site to find job candidates.

In second place is Facebook, with two-thirds of those polled saying they use the site, up substantially from 66 percent last year. And Twitter is also gaining traction, with 54 percent saying they look for talent on the site.

While it may seem everyone and their sister is already social media and tweet crazy, think again. Only 15 percent of adults who use the Internet used Twitter as of February, according to a Pew report. And overall, only 66 percent of online adults are using social networking sites, another Pew study found. 

If you’re in the job market, your anti-social media aversion may not be a good thing.

"Don't expect someone to hand you a job the minute you jump on Twitter or start using Google+, but it is possible to make good connections quickly, and you never know where they will lead," said Miriam Salpeter, author of "Social Networking for Career Success."

"It's also important to try to figure out where your industry people are spending time," she advised. "If there are a lot of your colleagues on Twitter, be sure to see if you can make use of that. Search to see who is posting and where they post and then see if you can engage on those same platforms."

Clearly, just having a social media presence won’t guarantee you a job, and actually could hurt your employment chances if your page isn’t up to snuff.

The Jobvite survey found nearly three out of four hiring manager check candidates’ profile page, and here’s how it shakes down when it comes to what you post:

• 80 percent of respondents reacted positively to seeing memberships to professional organizations, while two-thirds like to see volunteering or donating to a nonprofit.
• Content that recruiters especially frown on includes references to using illegal drugs (78 percent negative) and posts of a sexual nature (67 percent negative).
• Profanity in posts and tweets garnered a 61 percent negative reaction, and almost half (47 percent) reacted negatively to posts about alcohol consumption.
• Worse than drinking, grammar or spelling mistakes on social profiles saw a 54 percent negative reaction.
• However, recruiters and hiring managers tend to be neutral in their reactions to political opinions (62 percent neutral) and religious posts (53 percent neutral).

OK, if you haven’t taken the social networking plunge, I’m here to help you put your toe in if you’re game. Follow me on Twitter and we can start a dialogue.

Want advice on how to use social networking to land a job? Join us for a live web chat today at 10:30 am ET with Dan Schawbel, author of “Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future”, and a personal branding and career expert. He’ll be on hand to take questions from readers about social networking and the job hunt. Sign up here.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

What from the "Don't be stupid on social media" school of philosophy do you not understand yet? In case there's any doubt about what you should or shouldn't be saying or doing on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, business psychologists from the U.K. are happy to let you know that those sites are being scoured for dirt or anything else that could trip you up with an employer, potential or existing.

The psychologists, part of a group called OPP, presented its findings at a recent conference on occupational psychology. "When applying for a new job, candidates spend hours pulling together a targeted, convincing and professional-looking CV to secure that interview. But what if your potential employer is not noticing your impeccable spelling and beautifully formatted covering letter, but instead raising an eyebrow at your flippant comments, risqué photos and questionable ‘check-ins’ on Facebook?" OPP says.

The organization surveyed 1,000 people in the U.K. and Ireland, and found:

56 percent of respondents said that they were likely to check out the social media presence of potential employees (although 27 percent of those surveyed said they would be uncomfortable with the same being done to them). On the flipside, 37 percent of people said they change their persona online — so looking at their online presence may be misleading anyway.

Think it's just Facebook or Twitter shenanigans that can get you off someone's list of potential hires? What if you say on LinkedIn that you're interested in "career opportunities" — LinkedIn offers you a check box for that if you want it — even though you're already working somewhere?

OPP notes a real-life case about that in Britain. As reported in The Telegraph, John Flexman "is thought to be the first person in the country to bring a case for constructive dismissal after a dispute with bosses" over his LinkedIn profile:

Mr Flexman is claiming hundreds of thousands of pounds from BG Group, a major gas exploration firm based in Reading, Berks, where he earned a £68,000 salary in charge of graduate recruitment.

As well as loading his CV onto the site, Mr Flexman ticked a box to register an interest in “career opportunities."

Says OPP: "For jobseekers, some pretty common-sense advice applies: Lock down your Facebook profile, and behave on LinkedIn as you would at a professional networking event (without the free bar!)"

Related stories:

• Will Facebook Actions make Timeline mandatory?
• Study: Checking smartphones increases stress
• Prediction: 500 million Twitter accounts by mid-February

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