Social Media: Affecting Future Employees One Post at a Time

By JESSICA WRIXON

October 27, 2014

For many people, the Internet serves as a public book for documenting their lives. Posting pictures, tagging locations, and sharing information may seem like a fun way to get connected and involved with social media, but sometimes sharing too much information can go too far, affecting the future of many.

With social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, anything can be shared with anyone. Even if a person is careful of what they post online, future employers can see all the said information, which can cause the employer to reconsider the decision to hire someone.

Prospective employees can be tagged in pictures and status updates by their friends, or can even have these negative factors posted to their friends’ profiles, making it visible to employers.

According to The Hiring Site, powered by Careerbuilder.com, in 2013 around 39 percent of employers took advantage of social networking to check out a potential future employer and out of those, around 43 percent said they had found information that factored into not hiring a that person.

“Our company checks social media sites of all kinds while going through the hiring process for many reasons,” said Ken Kubicki, GAF Materials Corporation’s director of technology solutions.

“One reason our Human Resources department likes to do this is what we like to call ‘going postal,’” he said. “What somebody does in their private life can always carry over into the work place so we like to make sure that these people aren’t involved in anything like a communist or Nazi organization or has a tendency towards terrorism or anything extreme like that.”

“We want to make sure the rest of our employees are safe and comfortable within the workplace,” he said.

Although what is posted on social media can affect anybody, college graduates are most at risk for getting turned down for a job after what is seen posted on their social media sites. Pictures of partying, underage drinking, foul language and inappropriate behavior are just a few factors that help to contribute to jobless graduate students.

“I always be careful with that I post to my social media accounts because I know what a lot of possible employers check that sort of information out,” said Danielle Eichenbaum, a Syracuse University 2014 graduate.

“I’m going through a tempe agency to look for a job and they always remind me about social media and what shouldn’t be posted online.

“I have a few friends that I went to school with who didn’t get a job because of what they posted on their Facebook,” she said. “You have to make sure there aren’t pictures of you partying or holding alcohol bottles because that makes you look like an unprofessional party animal.”

Before graduation, many students take to their social media accounts to make their account private, change their name to avoid future employers from finding their account, or filter out photos and other information that can potentially affect them getting hired.

“If you’re going through your profile untagging yourself from pictures and statuses that could be harmful, you need to make sure you start from day one because those posts just don’t go away and it looks worse that you’re doing those things at a younger age,” Eichenbaum said.

“People don’t understand the consequences that come with social media. It could change the whole course of your life,” she said.