This article was originally posted at Technorati

Traditionally social media has been seen as a hindrance to ones career ambitions.There have been numerous examples of people having been sacked due to their Facebook antics, whilst earlier this year a manager was dismissed for apparent misuse of Linkedin.

Research last year from Australia suggested that most social media profiles do more harm than good when it comes to getting that top job.  According to the findings, some of the biggest Cyber CV faux pas candidates make include posting inappropriate pictures (with 31 per cent of employers saying this counts against applicants) and posting discriminatory comments (37 per cent),

However, research released recently suggests that our social media profiles can actually be the most accurate way of predicting the success (or otherwise) of a job candidate. 

They found that a 10 minute review of a persons Facebook page is a better indicator of personality and character than any more traditional application measure.

Participants were given training on how to rate a Facebook profile, answering specific questions relating to personality.  They would then spend 10 minutes evaluating each profile.

The following excerpt from the study gives an insight into how they went about their task.

"Those high in agreeableness are trusting and get along well with others, which may be represented in the extensiveness of personal information posted. Openness to experience is related to intellectual curiosity and creativity, which could be revealed by the variety of books, favorite quotations or other posts showing the user engaged in new activities and creative endeavors. Extroverts more frequently interact with others, which could be represented by the number of SNW (social networking websites) friends a user has."

When the candidates were placed in a job they followed up on them six months later to see how accurate their predictions were.  Conversations with their supervisors revealed that the quick Facebook analysis was more conclusive than standard tests in nearly ever instance.

The researchers believed this was because the version of yourself painted on your Facebook page is more realistic than the idealistic version of yourself you paint in standard personality tests.

Thus far most recruiters simply scour social media profiles for reasons why they shouldn't hire you, but if this research catches on it might not be long before your profile is used for much more than that.