11/05/2024
CAN YOUR PRIVATE SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES COST YOU A JOB?
1. As much as we think and believe that our social media profiles are private and have nothing to do with our work spaces, about 70% of employers use social media to vet candidates.
2. Is this fair? It depends on who’s asking and for what reason but fact is these are used to ascertain whether or not you live the values of that organization.
3. You cannot post and promote nudity, body shaming, use vulgar language, post sexist and discriminatory stuff online but turn around and say as an employee you are not all these negative things because you only post them on your private pages.
4. Offensive comments, violent or aggressive behavior, misogynistic and sexually explicit material, or even confidential information are just some of the red flags on candidates.
5. And if a prospective employer wants to find your social media pages, they will, even if you can use pseudo names or even digits such as ABC or 123 as your names.
6. It is advisable for you to be a good human being all the time, desist from being a mean human when you think no one is watching or no one will know it is you.
7. Oh another fact to remember is that you cannot post a negative or derogatory comment about a company’s product or service and then expect that when they learn about that, they will still believe you to be a candidate who has their best interest at heart as an employee.
Do you think this is fair? It doesn’t matter for now but it is reality because many of us are now living our lives on social media so it is only fair that employers check us out on these platforms.
From me, your not so favorite HR Lady who tells you the truth and not just what you want to hear😊