I Think My Employer’s Stalking Me

Applying for a new job is already daunting enough. So many self-reflective questions asking whether you’re good enough. Did I put my best foot forward? Will the employees be impressed with my previous experience? Will my resume stand out from other applicants? Now potential job candidates are faced with another form of reputation management: will the employer think I look favourable from my social media accounts?

Social media screening has added another precaution towards gaining your dream job. A survey completed by CareerBuilder in 2018, found that 70% of employers used social media to screen candidates. This is a 500% increase from the previous decade. It was found that the employer based their judgements about the candidates from these searches which ultimately affected the chance of whether the potential employee was successful. Many people believe that this is unfair and unethical. I believe rightfully so. However, is it naive to believe that our digital footprints shouldn’t affect our work lives? I think yes!

Employers use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to view the type of content an individual posts. From this content employers are looking for any information that would hinder or contribute to one’s employability. From the CareerBuilder Survey, it was found that employers were using social media screening to find out the following information about the candidates: qualifications, professional online persona, other people’s posts and reasons not hire. From this search, more than half of employers found content on social media that caused them not to hire a candidate. An alarming statistic for future job prospects. Especially for myself, a soon to be graduate.

Legality of Creeping Employer’s

There are no federal laws that implicitly inhibit employers from searching an employee’s social media pages. However, as highlighted by Martin Osborne, a lawyer that specialises in Employment and Industrial Relations law, ramifications can occur through this process. “Sourcing irrelevant personal information or information about a particular attribute that a candidate possesses through social media in the recruitment stage creates the risk of a possible claim for discrimination by an unsuccessful candidate… [U]nder the Fair Work Act 2009… an unsuccessful candidate could make a claim for adverse action as a result of the use of the personal information”. However employee’s are still legally able to and continue to complete social media screening as a method of conducting background checks.

There’s no doubt that discriminating against a future employee on such aspects as their ethnicity and physical appearance is incredibly wrong, and illegal. Future employees should not be subject to discrimination due to information on these personal aspects that can be found through their social media accounts.. However, in today’s digital climate, it is not unreasonable or unrealistic for an employer to make a judgement over your online behaviour.

To post or not to post?

I often struggle with wanting to post images that are not necessarily safe for work. By which I mean images from nights out containing alcohol or even just pictures of me in bikinis. However, as a soon-to-be graduate, I have become hyper aware of my online portrayal, as I want to be positively viewed. This has ultimately led me to post very clean-cut images.

Social media has blurred the lines between the audience that your posts reach. Social media has broken down the barriers, making the compartmentalization of one’s self representation difficult to maintain. Erving Goffman, a Canadian-American sociologist, in his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), explains that individuals are constantly maintaining “impression management”; ensuring that they are portraying themselves in a pleasing manner for those they interact with. This impression management is increasingly difficult due to the broken barriers caused by social media. For example, you may want to show a few sneaky pics of you and your friends getting rowdy to your mates, but you don’t want your prospective boss seeing that. This break down of personal and professional barriers between your perceived identity, has created the concern that your online profile needs to be safe for all viewers. Ultimately limiting one’s self-expression.

As much as limiting self expression on social media is not ideal, and to be honest a total bummer, I think that it is warranted. Social media is just another way for individuals to form judgement. Posting multiple images off you getting black-out drunk is obviously going to reflect negatively for your professional representation. Through the blurring between private and public, an employee would see that and make assumptions. I do believe assumption making is wrong when you are not familiar with the individual, but if you have willingly decided to post that content publicly, then you can’t be surprised when your personal portrayal is used for judgement.

Cruel reality

Social media is an extension of yourself for people to form opinions on you. It is naive to believe that what you post shouldn’t and won’t affect your professional life, although it is not necessarily ‘right’. Ultimately it comes down to you and your decisions. Is posting the video of yourself being an absolute nonsense on the alcoholic beverages worth losing a future employment opportunity? Do you prefer free self expression, to a paying job?

Or you could just make your profile private…