Picture this: you’re applying for a job. You do everything right—you submit the perfect application, ace the interview, and even score bonus points by sending a thank you note. Yet, inexplicably, you don’t get offered the job. So what was missing?

Surprisingly enough, the answer could be your Facebook account—or lack thereof.

In light of Facebook’s extreme popularity, some HR managers view those who don’t have a Facebook profile as “suspicious.”

A report from London’s Daily Mail posits that those without Facebook accounts are less likely to be hired in a professional setting. In light of Facebook’s extreme popularity, some HR managers view those who don’t have a Facebook profile as “suspicious,” and believe it can indicate abnormality or dysfunction.

A recent post from PR Daily’s Michael Sebastian picked up on the findings, and while some are a little extreme, they provide serious food for thought for professional service providers. Their prospective clients, after all, often turn to networking sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn to dig up some preliminary information about the professionals they are considering hiring. A nonexistent social media presence will seriously hurt those professionals for the same reason it affects young people without a Facebook account: it looks weird. For professionals today, having an established presence on the web is necessary to being viewed as a competent professional service provider. And those without some searchable Internet presence beyond their firm profiles seriously harm their changes of being hired at all.

So even if you’re not the most tech-savvy person in the world, it might be time to jump on the social media bandwagon and create that LinkedIn account. You’ll be putting yourself in the running for your next big engagement.