Imagine years from now, a job employer looks into a person’s social media account, takes how many followers they have, reviews all their posts in great detail and uses that to influence whether or not they will be hired.
Wake up because that narrative is a reality today. According to Career Builder, almost 60 percent of employers use social media accounts to research potential job candidates. Moreover, a fourth of all employers have been found to fire or reprimand employees who posted online content that was insensitive or against the company’s guidelines.
Isn’t it scary how a simple post that has little meaning could affect a job status or even cost a person’s job? Indeed to the millennial generation, who prides themselves on viral videos on Twitter, getting hundreds of likes on Instagram and acquiring thousands of followers on their social media accounts, this might be outside of their mindset when posting a picture of themselves out drinking with their friends.
Privacy is out the window when it comes to posting on social media. Although there are various settings to make social media accounts private to only their friends, there are many ways to still get in trouble.
For example, one of my friends lost her spot as an officer in an organization when the advisor found a picture of her holding a drink in her profile picture while she was still underage.
Bottom line, if you post something, no matter how many privacy settings that are out there, it won’t be hard for someone to find the post.
Then comes the seemingly easy solution to this—“when I’m ready to start my career or get a job, I’ll just delete all the bad posts.” Sure, this notion might work in some areas where they might not dig as deep, but in other job places, trained professionals will know how to do their research on the people that apply for jobs. They can simply stalk a person’s friends, whom they’ve tagged in photos, and search for any unsuitable posts. Specifically, on Twitter, a job employer may request an archive list of all Tweets sent out by the person throughout the duration of their being on social media.
I guess the only solution, in that case, is to delete an account to prevent any hiring managers finding anything that could go against their beliefs.
In journalism, social media becomes one of the greatest tools to send out news, photos or any multimedia component. Similarly, I’ve seen my friends and cohorts who have an unfiltered Twitter or Instagram having to make a separate professional accounts.
To me, that’s like being a robot on social media. It takes the significance of having a profile away and replaces it with a censored feed of bland updates.
There is a simple compromise on both ends—be smart with social media! No one needs to prove that they go out and party to the world of Instagram, and similarly, no one needs to know what you do on the weekends. Instead of tweeting “Donald Trump can suck it,” why not get off your keyboard and participate in real-life activities?
Because at the end of the day, 20 or 30 years down the line, if we all have our social media accounts still intact, services like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter are nothing but a lengthy yearbook on a person’s life. Similarly to an actual yearbook, a person wouldn’t want an embarrassing photo or immature response to pop up down the line.