While it may seem fun to post pictures of your drunken night at the bar on social media, there’s a good chance those shots can come back to haunt you. You could have the best job interview of your life, but lose it because of what you post on sites like Facebook or Instagram. In fact, it seems more and more companies admit they are factoring social media into their hiring decisions.
A new CareerBuilder survey finds that 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates, a 10% jump from last year, and a whopping 59% increase from 2006. Believe it or not, social media has become such an important part in judging candidates that 30% of employers actually have someone whose sole task is to do social media research on potential job prospects.
Overall, 54% of employers say they have found content on social media that made them not hire a candidate for a job. As for what caused them to rethink that decision, some of the reasons include:
- Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs, videos or information: 39%
- Candidate posted information about them drinking or using drugs: 38%
- Candidate had discriminatory comments related to race, gender, religion: 32%
- Candidate bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employee: 30%
- Candidate lied about qualifications: 27%
- Candidate had poor communication skills: 27%
- Candidate was linked to criminal behavior: 26%
- Candidate shared confidential information from previous employers: 23%
- Candidate's screen name was unprofessional: 22%
- Candidate lied about an absence: 17%
- Candidate posted too frequently: 17%
Not that your social media presence is always bad for a job. The truth is, 44% of employers say that content on a person’s social networking site actually convinced them to hire a candidate.
Source: Yahoo Finance