Should your employer be allowed access to your social media profile?
Well… should they?
We are told by our elders, at some point in our lives, “not to post anything that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see” so, what’s the big deal with a future employer creeping back 64 weeks on your Instagram profile?
I myself struggle with whether or not this idea makes me uncomfortable, and I am someone who truly has nothing to hide. I keep a clean Instagram, free of underage drinking, cuss words, or in other words, things I wouldn’t want my grandmother to see… but somehow, I still get nervous at the thought of having to pass a “social media screening” before I get a job. I immediately get anxious thinking about whether or not my use of the ‘Nashville’ filter will appeal to Account Managers of multi-million dollar companies I may send my resume to, or if my lack of hashtags will make me seem out of the loop on current social media trends *gasp*
In one hand, this step is pertinent in assuring companies that the people they are going to hire are people who are going to positively represent the company brand and support the mission and values set forth on their first day of job training. This piece of the screening process is especially important to me and my future employers, as I want to represent companies and their social medias for a living. This goes for my artists and social media campaigners too. Social media profiles can be an extensive portfolio of your abilities and allow a future employer an even deeper look into your interests and talents with just the scroll of a profile. On another hand, my concern with this idea is that social medias are a platform of expression and creativity; what one person sees as graffiti on a city wall, another sees as art and I wonder where the line is for what each person feels is appropriate on a profile and not. Should someone really be turned away from a position they are qualified and fit to hold, simply because their grandmother might blush about what they do on the weekend? When is when — is it the beer bottle in the background of a photo that will cost someone a job? or the picture of them at a rally for the BLM Movement seen by a hiring manager who is secretly a white supremacist… a little extreme, but you get my point.
So when you post that adorable picture I encourage you to wonder who is going to see it and what the potential outcome may be…even if it seems harmless.
