What role will social media play in tomorrow’s job search? Hiring? Firing?
Social media is a great tool to express ourselves on the internet. We can take our day to day lives and express how we feel about things that we do by ourselves or with others. Most social media accounts today reveal the purest form of ourselves. For example, we create vlogs or blogs about our hobbies/ interests such as weight lifting or make up. When we show others this content that we are posting on social media we are only allowing them to see the best qualities of ourselves. Now what role will social media play in tomorrow’s job search? including the hiring and firing process. Let’s take my friend David’s Instagram account for instance. His account demonstrates the knowledge he possesses on sociology, psychology and kinesiology using vlogs and pictures with a description in the comment section that goes into further detail. Relating back to the question, say David were to apply to the gym as a personal trainer. The hiring committee would take in his resume, examine it and then search for further details about him online through Google or social media. I know that today they do this when searching for a good candidate, however they only are looking for negative content that could affect their business if they were to hire this person. What tomorrow’s job search would be looking for would be more specific things such as the amount of content his posts (how much knowledge he possesses), the quality of his posts (if he knows what he’s talking about or no), and the number of people view and like his content. Other possibility that might intrigue the hiring committee would be how much and how well he communicates his message to his viewers. Having a popular account could get you the job you’ve been looking for.
Now focusing on the negative, the part where you could get fired. Even from our week 4 lecture where a guy stated that he was fired for voicing his opinion about his political stance on Facebook. Although it was wrong of his employer to fire him for voicing his opinion there still could be an alternative example where an employee could share his opinion on social media that contradicts or disrespects the company and what it stands for. An example of this could be posting on Twitter saying bad things about other employees and stating all the problems the company caused you.
Going back to what I talked about before about having a popular social media. There could be negative effect from this. Using a situation that is recent would be the “Cash me outside girl” from Dr. Phil. Over the last couple weeks, she has blown up the internet with her rash and offensive actions. She has now become a joke that other social media accounts mock. When she grows up and is going to apply for a job, why would any employer hire her? She has become a perfect example of an internet meme and has shown her true personality on the internet. No one will want to hire her after all her rampages and whatever she might do next. The one thing to take from all of this would be to watch how and what content you reveal to the internet because it can affect a possible job opportunity.
