Is Facebook the reason people are not getting hired?
I
do not have facebook, yes a shocker, but I used to, and I can tell you this,
out of the hundreds of friends I had I really only talked to about twenty of
them. I know what you’re thinking; why on earth would you not have a facebook,
well because it started to become a complete waste of time and energy. There
were no benefits to it, and as a future teacher, I do not want students or my
boss to look at what I do outside of teaching. And although I do not think employers
should have the right to look at your facebook, it may happen, and there is
really nothing I can do to stop it if I am in desperate need of a job. But here
is why I think it’s a horrible idea for employers or colleges to look at the facebook
profiles before hiring or accepting. First, how many times have you seen your
friends post "I HATE MY JOB” or post a picture of how bored they look. I
have seen it firsthand millions of times on twitter. Sometimes your job is
boring, and sometimes you are just having a bad day, but that doesn’t mean you
are going to be a horrible employee. Next, I have seen too many times posts of
pictures of either you or a friend passed out, with inappropriate permanent
marker markings all over the face and body. I don’t know about you, but I would
not want to hire that person. But what if that person had just had a long day
at work, or was just studying their butt off, but needed a break. Then, there
are the sensible, smart people, the people who posts pictures of them feeding
the poor, or helping a young struggling student with his homework or post a
great inspiring quote as their status. Sure it looks good, but how many times
do you really do that, and do you really believe in that quote?
Facebook is in
essence a totally different world. The way people talk, act and do on facebook,
is more often than not, not how they are in real life. When I had facebook, it
was a place for me to escape reality, where I could talk to my friends about
inappropriate things, or post pictures of the fun I had on the weekends, I
could talk about anything and release my stress. Facebook can not reflect your
stability, or ability as a future employer. In my personal opinion, not even a
formal interview can do that. But if I was an employer right now looking to
hire my friend, who goes to Cornell University, and has a 3.8 average, has gone
to South Africa every summer to help the children learn English, and has never
missed a day of school, I wouldn’t hire her, because her main picture is of her
in a bikini, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in another.
2 comments:
I think that employers using facebook to screen potential new employees is too much, but apparently some are going as far as to request passwords for their facebook pages. I honestly can not even believe this is happening. After reading this post my initial response was going to be, if you are worried about it, just make your profile super private. But if employer's are asking for your password, what do you do in that situation? It is an invasion of privacy; if employer's can ask for passwords for facebook, what is stopping them from asking for login information for email, online banking, etc.? With that article, there is a poll asking if emplotyers should ask for facebook passwords, and not surprisingly the vast majority (93%) have responded with 'No'. However I was shocked to see 5% responded with 'Yes'. How can anyone support this? I honestly feel that if employer's can see your information on facebook due to low privacy settings, then they can use it in their decision. But asking for private information and the ability to gain control of employee's facebook accounts is crossing the line.
I think that if we're putting our lives on the internet, employers have a right to look at it. Nothing is private anymore, thanks to the internet. Obviously employers asking for passwords is extremely excessive and unrealistic, due to privacy issues, but if you do a simple Google search of a perspective employee it opens one to a plethora of results. For example, I just searched my name, and my Xanga from middle school came up. This is such a poor representation of who I am, but employers might see this and not hire me because of it. Forbes came out with an article that explains why employers asking for passwords would cause many issues within the workplace. I wholeheartedly agree with this. Like you stated above, Facebook and social media can be a poor representation of who a person really is. Weren't we taught not to judge a book by its cover when we were younger? I know that if an employer asked for my Facebook password I would feel it was a violation of my rights, and if my company was really concerned with what is on my Facebook page, they probably aren't the right company for me.
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