Prospective employers checking you out on Facebook not ethical? Get over it.
Is it ethical for a company to use what you freely post on a social networking site as part of their decision making process? Prospective employers checking you out on Facebook not ethical? Get over it.
I posed that question the other day to a group of students at Queen’s Business School in Kingston, Ontario. The answers I got were interesting; they generally saw sites like Facebook as just that: a social networking tool. And they didn’t generally connect that a prospective employer has an ethical right to base their hiring decision on what a candidate posts online in their off hours.
But here’s the thing: Regardless of the ethical questions at play, what you post online will likely be found, in one form or another, by prospective employers. A recent study found that 45 percent of employers surveyed use social networks to screen job candidates.
So, here’s a question for all business students: At a time when unemployment is at a 26-year high, and competition for jobs is fiercer than ever, what are you currently doing with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to expand, find, or grow your career? Are you taking advantage of what’s free in a way that allows you to take those steps?
Hi Chuck, I like your website!
Employers that make a judgment about someone from looking up a facebook or twitter account shows that the employer is not too smart.
With the amount of computer hackers these days and with corrupt so called religions like Scientology who use smear campaigns on so many people…accounts like facebook can be broken into and what the employer may be reading may in fact not have been written by the potential person they were thinking of hiring.
You know back when I was in fourth grade I knew about the government listening in on everyone’s phone calls. I didn’t know it was mostly a group called the NSA, but I knew. What surprised me, when this info came out a couple of years ago…is how many lawyers were unaware of that fact. Not only do they listen in on phone calls but there are actual people that work for the Department of Defense or a number of alphabet agencies that tap into people’s computers and slander the person. Why do they do this…it may be as simple as their spouse may work with someone that he or she does not like and they then ask their worse half to investigate the person. Of course this is against the law and against their policy and procedures but they do it anyway.
Sort of like cops writing off tickets for people. I actually worked with a nurse whose husband was a cop and this Doctor she hardly knew asked her to get her husband to write off a traffic ticket for him. This has been the norm across this country for a very long time. The lies are immense and most wonder why the world is falling apart!
Truly,
Karen Romero