Robert Wierzbicki English 1102 Professor Padgett

Social Media in the workplace

For just over a decade social media has changed the way that we, as humans, communicate, share and expose our daily lives. People tend to share life altering moments such as relationships status or having children, to simple backyard pool parties or wild night out in the town. Once users share things about their lives it is the comments that become next. Social media is designed to have something similar of your own webpage. Post what you want, say what you want and discuss what you want. The most popular of media sites, Facebook , allows someone to do just that. Facebook is the leading social media site over the past decade with the most users worldwide. All social media, including Facebook, play a significant role in your employment status. With the access of technology becoming more and more vulnerable to searching everyone and anyone, it only takes a simple Google search of a name to start your research on someone. Many employers are doing simply that. Lets take a scenario of you going on an interview and you feeling like it went very well. You come home and tell your friends or family that you really felt like you got the job. After a few days of waiting for the phone to ring it finally happens. The company you interviewed with has a human resource administrator tell you that they have decided to go a different direction but they will keep your resume on file for any future openings the company may have. Now you claimed the interview went well. You have the

necessary qualifications that they require. What went wrong? Did you maybe go to party over the weekend? Maybe posting the picture of you and your buddy doing a lot of shots was not a good idea. The point of the scenario is that in todays world of technology and social media frenzy, it allows just about anybody to really see what kind of person you are off the screen. With the hiring process becoming tighter to fill positions employers are taking advantage of the easy access of social media to select proper candidates for their positions. Evidence to support that employers use social media as a hiring process tactic can be supported by Kashmir Hill of Forbes magazine. Kashmir says if you dont like the person there (on Facebook), you probably wont like working with them. In Careersbuilder.coms survey, 63% of managers who used social networking websites did not hire the person based on the negative things they found on their profile. Employers typically find information about a candidates lifestyle and hobbies that would possibly take up time that could be used to work. Employers also have to worry about how this applicant can make a positive or negative impact on the company name. In the Journal of Business and Psychology, they also indicate that there is an enormous rise of usage of social media sites playing a big role in the prescreening process of hiring new employees. Whether the use of this hiring practice is meant to find good or bad behaviors of potential candidates the fact remains that employers are in fact researching their potential new hires and even existing employees on the web. Employers have many risks and consequences to consider when researching their candidates on media sites. If an employer chooses this method they could be faced with not having an accurate portrayal of an individual and also if they choose to not hire a person, they will not be able to defend themselves against claims indicating that what they saw online may not be job related.

When already hired and currently employed by a company it is not always safe to say that a job is secure. Many employees face the danger of potentially losing their employment status for comments or complaints they post on their profiles. In fact, there are many cases out in the country where employees are now suing a company for wrongful termination or invasion of privacy because a company terminated them based what they posted on their profile. Personally, I can understand if an employer wants to use Facebook, Twitter or any other social media site to prescreen their candidates, but I find it to be some sort of invasion of privacy if an employer were to terminate someone for statements made on their profile pages. Social media is meant to spread your personal life out into the open, however they key word stated is personal. The posts that are made on a social WebPages are between the user, friends and family. I do not think an employer should be poking their heads into business that isnt theirs. Celeste Headlee of Talk of the Nation interviewed a labor laws expert reporter for the New York Times named Steven Greenhouse. Steven Greenhouse is a credible source that indicates there are dos and donts to posting and information about your workplace. For example, it is okay to say negative things about your workplace as long as other employees of the company are in the thread and there are no specific names mentioned. Talk about your workplace with anyone and mention specific names could be grounds for termination. There have been laws put in place for both the employee and employer regarding social media by National Labor Relations Board. The laws that protect both the employer and the employ are what most would consider gray areas. No matter the laws that protect the employer, the labor board has more cases protecting the employee rather than the employer. Many reasons such as if the employee was able to conduct their required tasks or if the employee brought hostile work environment into the workplace. Situations like that these leave an employer with no choice but

to face wrongful termination suit however companies have an image to protect when an associate is displaying negative feedback about the organization. With all that being said, concrete evidence needs to be submitted that an employees personal profile page is effecting the companys image, reputation, other employees and revenue potential. In the New York Times there was an article written by Alan Finder. Credible professionals, recruiters and CEOs who have confessed to using social media websites to select their candidates explain that there is no way to really get to know someone unless you catch them off guard. Brad Karsh who is a small consulting firms president based out of Chicago claims that using Facebook to recruit gives him the opportunity to really think about his potential employee. He says what kind of judgment does this person have?Why are you allowing this to be viewed publicly, effectively, or semi-publicly? When asking these questions he was referring to a potential candidate that displayed photos of him smoking a blunt (hallowed cigar with marijuana inside). Pictures of inappropriate sexual content were also visible to just anyone, including Brad. When a recruiter, president or hiring manger sees this content they nearly second guess their judgment of consideration for a candidate. The facts are simple. In todays society, social media changes the way we, as humans, communicate, keep up with latest trends and even conduct business. Even with all these advantages that modern technology has supplied for us, there does come a cost. When our lives are easily exposed to the World Wide Web in the form a social media sites it leaves us vulnerable to judgmental people. Whether the judgment is on a friend, family or colleague, it could go on even further to a potential job opportunity that we seek. The privacy settings in our social media profiles pages are just not enough for someone to find out any information about a particular person. Employers are using this method to select candidates and I can only imagine

that it goes deeper than this. Think about school acceptance processes. If employers are using Facebook, MySpace , twitter or any other form of social media to select the new hires, wouldnt it make sense for prestigious universities to use this method to accept a potential freshmen? The possibilities are endless when it comes to technology, let alone social media. Once you post your business or lifestyle, it is on the internet for good; for all to see.

Works Cited Page

Daniloff, Caleb. "Facebook Got Me Fired ." BU Today RSS. Boston University, 08 July 2011. Web.

Headlee, Celeste, and Steven Greenhouse. "Social Media And Work: Is It Ever OK To Complain Online?" KDLG. N.p., 09 Feb. 2013. Web. 09 Mar. 2014. <http://kdlg.org/post/line-between-freedom-speech-and-fireable-offense>.

Russo, Emily. "How Employers Use Social Media to Hire Employees | Social Raising (The Coudrain Group)." Review. Web log post. Word Press. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2014. <http://socialraise.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/how-employers-use-social-media-to-hireemployees/>.

Brown, Victoria R., and E. Daily Vaughn. "The Writing on the (Facebook) Wall: The Use of Social Networking Sites in Hiring Decisions - Springer." Journal of Business and Psychology 26 (2011): 219-25. The Writing on the (Facebook) Wall: The Use of Social Networking Sites in Hiring Decisions - Springer. 04 May 2011. Web. 09 Mar. 2014. <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10869-011-9221-x#page-1>.

Finder, Alan. "For Some , Online Persona Undermines a Resume." Editorial. The New York Times 11 June 2006: n. pag. Web.