While attending college and studying Human Resources, I always heard teachers saying there would be new trends of hiring managers and companies checking social media before hiring individuals. I once was the student who was sitting in the chair and saying, “Yeah I’m sure, I have my privacy settings set to where no one can see my pages.” I am now the individual who checks social media for your profiles to see if I can get a surface read of what type of employee you will be and believe me, if you use correct search terms, your privacy settings don’t matter. When I was a college football player our coaches said the same thing to us and again, we laughed and said it didn’t matter because we were set to private, etc. It wasn’t until a very attractive and familiar looking girl walked into the room that we all saw how easy it was. This meeting was on the schedule for weeks and the team didn't know what it was for. This young lady had friend requested most of the team on facebook as a student from a random university. During that time frame, she collected all pictures, posts, and information necessary to prove the coach's point. She worked for the NCAA and they were staging these type of meetings to take place to show their college athletes how airing your dirty laundry out on social media was not a good idea. I raise the same question to people in the job market today, are you okay with your potential employers seeing your facebook, twitter, intsagram?
With that being said, I thought this article by Venessa Wong was pretty eye opening. It lines out the statistics of hiring managers that are looking at social media outlets, based off a study that was done.
“Think before you post, especially if you’re looking for a job. Seems like common sense, doesn’t it? Yet despite all the advice and warnings to be cautious with social media, job applicants continue to get burned by their online profiles.
Many companies now search candidates’ social-media accounts to get a better feel for their personalities, to see if they have creative flair, and to find out how well they communicate. Done right, your profile can work in your favor. Of 2,184 hiring managers recently surveyed by CareerBuilder, said one-fifth said a candidate’s online profile helped them land a position. More often, though, it backfires: 43 percent said they found information that led them not to hire a candidate, up 9 percentage points from last year. That trend means either that more job applicants are behaving badly online or that human resources is getting stricter in sniffing out problems.
The most commonly spotted red flags, according to the survey:
• Racy Photos: The crotch shot needs to die. Half of surveyed managers found provocative or inappropriate photos and info about candidates by reviewing their social-media updates.
• Booze: That album of your reckless Cancun vacation? Make it private. About 48 percent discovered info about the candidate drinking or using drugs on social-media sites.
• Crazy Ranting: That nickname you call your boss should be nowhere to be found on your Twitter feed. One-third found applicants had bad-mouthed a previous employer.
• OMG i h8 inglish: Thirty percent said the candidate had poor communication skills.
• Intolerance: About 28 percent of managers spotted discriminatory comments about race, gender, and religion.
• Lies: Did you really get degrees in Celtic languages and stem cell biology at Harvard? Just under one-fourth discovered candidates had misrepresented their qualifications through their online profiles.
So as long as you want to be employable, it would be wise to restrain your social-media posts so that they’re HR friendly. Most of your friends probably didn’t want to see those racy pics either.”