FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

There's Only One Reason for Companies to Look at Your Facebook Profile

Employers have every incentive to quit screening out people who did a well-documented keg stand.
via Flickr

You know those warnings from you mom that those pictures of you in a Halloween costume on your Facebook are going to cost you all future job prospects? Turns out increasingly people reply to their moms by saying “Why would I want to work for some asshat who does that?”

Okay, maybe they put it more delicately than that, but the sentiment remains. A new study published in Springer’s Journal of Business and Psychology found that—shocker!—people think organizations poking around their social media profiles violates their privacy and could lead to lawsuits or at the very least a negative impression of the company. It's the other side to mom's warning, a warning for the company: As tempting as it might be, looking at a potential hire's social media background could be enough to cost you a qualified new hire.

Advertisement

William Stoughton headed the research team from North Carolina State University that examined people’s reactions to potential employers rooting through their profiles. The subjects’ distaste for being such probed lingers regardless of whether or not they get the job. Prior research indicates that getting hired with a bad attitude leads to employees with bad attitudes. And if Edward Snowden proved nothing else, it’s that nobody wants to work for a spying shyster organization like that.

So across the board it makes sense for companies to cut it out, lest their employees show up in Hong Kong having sold their bosses out, right? Weeeelll… not exactly.

LinkedIn released their year-end list of the hottest (wait for it!) work skills (let down!). Looking at “all of the hiring and recruiting activity that happened on LinkedIn in the past year” they found that the list of skills that interested prospective employers was topped by “social media marketing.”

This is where looking at someone’s Facebook profile becomes less a matter of diving too deep into their personal life and turns into something more like looking at their portfolio. Just as one dresses differently at home compared to how one dresses at work, presumably a qualified candidate can manage two different sets of standards for social networking. What’s more, obviously everyone looking for a job via LinkedIn can probably—and honestly—claim to have at least some social media skills, especially if they’re getting hired. Still, I’m empathetic towards companies hiring someone for a social media marketing positions that want to see if you can use the tools competently.

Stoughton told RedOrbit that applicants should still probably reconsider using their Facebook pages “as private forums for casual discussion with their friends, and to rather adopt a much more guarded tone,” which is sensible especially because sticking up for the integrity of Facebook is a pretty stupid reason to not get a job you need.

All in all, the study really drive homes the fact that Facebook is more and more coming into its own as just another tool for companies, who even the social network—correctly—doesn’t categorize as your “Friends.”