I was once told by a friend that no good can come from Facebook or Twitter. There is certainly a lot to support that statement. These are the two biggest entities in social media today. They can make a private person public, turn a faithful person unfaithful, and introduce one to a sexual predator. No, but wait… now it can do more.
Apparently, social media is not only for the tired, run down, listless, those who pop out at parties, and are unpopular. Now those who have dedicated minutes upon minutes and sometimes hours on their favorite social media sites playing games, posting music videos, and some of my favorite random thoughts can now get a job. That’s right.
It seems that in the ever growing power that social media demonstrates, recruiters have turned their eyes to it. Your Facebook or Twitter page can now get you a job. According to a recent survey in the Montreal Gazette, 58% of employers check out Facebook, 42% check Twitter and 23% look at industry specific websites. Overall, 95% of recruiters are actively checking out profiles on social media sites. This idea can potentially produce great results or just as equally negative results.
How do we feel about that? When MySpace was popular, there was a controversy regarding the fact that major corporations were investigating potential employees by seeing how they conducted their personal lives outside of work. This was a tremendous dismay to those who considered their privacy valuable. All of the social media sites give everyone the capability of having private pages that only allow friends and family to view it. These companies had found a way to penetrate that, of course everyone rightfully viewed that as a violation of privacy. However, everyone should ask themselves the following question: How much privacy does one truly have on a social media internet site?
There is a saying; what goes on the Internet stays on the Internet.
Now, that we have been made re-aware of the impact that our Facebook and Twitter pages can affect our professional lives, how will we respond? I conducted a small survey amongst friends, co-workers, and professional acquaintances. Many of them are on Facebook. I told them of these facts and asked them how they would respond with their Facebook pages. 76% said they would temporarily deactivate their profiles until after they were hired. 20% said they would scramble to change their profiles, delete tagged images or others of a questionable nature. 4% said they would have nothing to worry about at all.
Whether or not a potential employer is checking out our social media profiles we should be taking considerable care of our public images. There are a large number of people who make spectacles of themselves on Facebook every day. If it’s not through distasteful pictures then it would be what they put up on their walls every day. We should take care in not posting anything that we could one day regret. You never know if you may have just ruined your chance at becoming the next CEO of a major company just because of that one picture you have on your Facebook page. Think about it, because it makes sense… and you know this.
Apparently, social media is not only for the tired, run down, listless, those who pop out at parties, and are unpopular. Now those who have dedicated minutes upon minutes and sometimes hours on their favorite social media sites playing games, posting music videos, and some of my favorite random thoughts can now get a job. That’s right.
It seems that in the ever growing power that social media demonstrates, recruiters have turned their eyes to it. Your Facebook or Twitter page can now get you a job. According to a recent survey in the Montreal Gazette, 58% of employers check out Facebook, 42% check Twitter and 23% look at industry specific websites. Overall, 95% of recruiters are actively checking out profiles on social media sites. This idea can potentially produce great results or just as equally negative results.
How do we feel about that? When MySpace was popular, there was a controversy regarding the fact that major corporations were investigating potential employees by seeing how they conducted their personal lives outside of work. This was a tremendous dismay to those who considered their privacy valuable. All of the social media sites give everyone the capability of having private pages that only allow friends and family to view it. These companies had found a way to penetrate that, of course everyone rightfully viewed that as a violation of privacy. However, everyone should ask themselves the following question: How much privacy does one truly have on a social media internet site?
There is a saying; what goes on the Internet stays on the Internet.
Now, that we have been made re-aware of the impact that our Facebook and Twitter pages can affect our professional lives, how will we respond? I conducted a small survey amongst friends, co-workers, and professional acquaintances. Many of them are on Facebook. I told them of these facts and asked them how they would respond with their Facebook pages. 76% said they would temporarily deactivate their profiles until after they were hired. 20% said they would scramble to change their profiles, delete tagged images or others of a questionable nature. 4% said they would have nothing to worry about at all.
Whether or not a potential employer is checking out our social media profiles we should be taking considerable care of our public images. There are a large number of people who make spectacles of themselves on Facebook every day. If it’s not through distasteful pictures then it would be what they put up on their walls every day. We should take care in not posting anything that we could one day regret. You never know if you may have just ruined your chance at becoming the next CEO of a major company just because of that one picture you have on your Facebook page. Think about it, because it makes sense… and you know this.
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