I am fascinated by some of the discussions I see taking place either on Facebook or Twitter. Something caught my eye last night during a job hunting chat that made me wonder just where in the world this is all going.
The "what do employers look for on your Facebook page?" topic came up. Many participants jumped right in with what they suspect companies might be finding - and how they react to those findings.
Being someone who sees many of these issues in black and white - and having an employer's perspective I jumped in. "Set your FB page to private. Problem solved." You'd think that would pretty much cover it, right? Well - it didn't.
A guy jumps in with "Transparency is the key". What? Transparency? Drunk pictures? Your obsession with Lady Gaga? Your string of Farmville lameness? This is what you think highlights you as a candidate? No way!
So in this short little back and forth (with a soon to be college graduate ready to jump into the work force) it dawned on me just how misinformed many of these poor kids are. Employers don't need - and should NOT know every thing about your personal life. It is lunacy to think this does anything other than give employers a reason to pass you by.
It ended on this final note from him: "....it is a social culture now, nothing is private."
Is that where we are? Nothing is private? Have these kids no sense of discretion? Who is telling them this? Where do we go from here?
Comment by Maureen Sharib on April 26, 2011 at 10:29am Down the tubes, Jer.
Down the tubes.
Comment by Jerry Albright on April 26, 2011 at 10:31am
Comment by Maureen Sharib on April 26, 2011 at 10:37am Sounds to me like the wet behind the ears set needs some career coach guidance.
"Common Career Sense From the People's Coach" or somethin' like that
Comment by Barbara Goldman on April 26, 2011 at 11:17am My first phone number was Valley 5 2355. The ladies wore hats and gloves, and not just on Easter Sunday.
Jerry, I think that you and I grew up in a more gentile society. It used to matter how one presented oneself. We lived by the rule that our undies should be clean. Think of the embarrassment in the emergency room!
The F word was something NOBODY said, let alone watch on television. Jeanie's belly button was mysteriously hidden.
When uncle Joe got drunk at Christmas, nobody took a photo and passed it around. We kept in private. In the family. Transparency? are you kidding? Transparency was for family, and close relationships.
Our permanent record was our transcript, and our police record, and did not contain photos of the drunken college party, or when we inhaled.
It was considered crude behavior to be 'transparent'. Digressions were forgiven, and forgotten.
Stop the world, I want to get off!
Comment by Suresh on April 26, 2011 at 11:26am Kids, unfortunately are smart enough to use these but can't see the consequences.
Well then again, we have also seen a lot of our grown ups do this and get caught (mayors, college coaches etc) with text messages, twitter posts. I think we are all learning how to deal with this new always ON media
Comment by Karen Kerr on April 26, 2011 at 11:40am
Comment by Jerry Albright on April 26, 2011 at 11:56am
© 2013 Created by RecruitingBlogs.
Powered by
RecruitingBlogs.com was founded in 2007 and is the social network for recruiters and HR professionals with over 35,000 members and over 21,000 blog posts and forum discussions. Its global online network provides recruiters with a forum to share, interact and collaborate with one another.



You need to be a member of RecruitingBlogs to add comments!
Join RecruitingBlogs