Avoid Getting Fired on Facebook

Posted on August 12, 2009 by Marta Turek

Human resources experts and recruitment agencies have been handing out quality recruiting advice by the boatload, making it freely available online for many years now. We seem to take heed of this advice during the interview process and when in ‘job hunting’ mode, but as soon as we have secured a job, somehow we seem to throw caution to the wind and begin our tirade, and it’s often about the boss!

Back in the day, prior to social media and the ability to tell countless millions of people how we feel about our day, or the fact that our dog is sick, or how we hate working late, we would let off steam at a private face-to-face rendezvous with a close friend. But, how narcissistic we are, how we love to share our thoughts with others in order to receive sympathy or encouragement. We are ‘till the end, social creatures, for better or for worse.

So, when we have that irrepressible urge to tell our boss how much we hate our job or publicly call him a ‘wanker’, it would serve us well to remember whether we added him as a Facebook friend or not!

What to do? What to do?

Most interview tips will clearly state NOT to bad mouth your employer, former or current, in any way whatsoever. So, why do we think it is okay to do it when holding down a position with the current employer?

So, here are a few options to review when that unmistakable urge hits you to slander your boss on ANY social media platform:

1. Think – before you post anything ludicrous, potentially damaging to your own reputation or someone else’s think about the potential consequences.

Remember that this is in fact the Internet and the information is readily available to everyone, it is not just your private broadcasting centre set up for you to vent your daily frustrations.

If you can help yourself, don’t do it! Smash a glass against the wall instead! Though messy, it will not be nearly as messy as being fired for saying something so damaging the consequence of which could only be losing your job.

2. Do not be ‘friends’ with your boss – there’s LinkedIn which has been specifically designed to further professional relationships and then there’s Facebook – the audience and the interaction vary significantly.

Do not mix your personal life and your business life too extensively. Know where to draw the line. We seem to have moved into a new era in which there almost is no line between personal and professional, which can be a problem if you forget that your boss is in fact your boss, and not just that really cool guy that can take a joke.

3. If you have to be friends, be ‘Limited Profile’ friends – if you absolutely have to accept your employer’s invitation to be friends on Facebook, there are options to limit how much of your profile can be viewed. Investigate the security and profile settings on your social media platforms! Facebook in particular offers a number of options from limited profiles to outright blocking people so that as far as they are concerned, on Facebook, you do not exist.

There are options, you simply have to take some control over your social media accounts. Do not simply adhere to all the default settings because they may simply not be in your best interests.

What follows is a step-by-step account of how to either block someone or give them a limited view of your Facebook account:

Scroll over the Settings tab,
next to your Log out button
and select Privacy Settings

On the next page that appears, you will see the first jewel – the ability to block people. In a nutshell, by blocking someone, you no longer exist to them on Facebook, nor do they exist to you. This extends as far as not being able to find that person in a Facebook search. Anyone with an –ex could fit well in this category, ex-boyfriends, ex-friends, anyone who has little business knowing the details of your personal life.

From the same page, you can tweak the privacy settings under these titles:

Profile
This is where you control who can see things such as your personal details or photos tagged of you, your status updates and links etc. If you wish to create limited profiles, simply click on Customise in the drop down menu and from there you can limit who sees your specific profile information.
Search
This section is more important than you think. Not only do you control who can search for your name on Facebook but you can also opt out of the Public Search Listing which controls whether your Facebook profile is searchable in the search engine results.

If you do not want employers to use Facebook to measure your compatibility with company culture, do not make your Facebook page easy to find, particulary in search engine query searches.

News Feed and Wall
This controls which Facebook actions others can see – if you do not wish to advertise all your Facebook activities such as adding a friend, writing a wall post or changing your relationship status – this is where you would tweak this visibility.

Applications
If you find yourself frequently using applications on Facebook, it would be worthwhile reviewing the privacy settings to see exactly how much personal information an application can view. Of course, the default will be that the application can access all your information, so you have to manually restrict this by logging into the privacy settings.

Take control of your Facebook privacy settings with the same zest with which you proclaim your daily sentiments in your status updates. This small endeavour may save you from consequences that would have you grumbling about your current jobless status in what would still officially be termed a recession.

As another reference point, this is a great post on how Facebook will be rolling out new privacy settings in the near future.

‘Putting Out’ to ‘Score’ on Social Media

Posted on May 3, 2009 by Marta Turek

A recent post on Mashable “Do you pass the social media recruitment test” attempts to develop a case for utilising a candidate’s social media footprint to determine their eligibility for the applied role.

The post asserts that if you do not have an expanded and publicly available ‘social media footprint’ you are at a serious disadvantage in the recruitment process to other, more candid candidates.

It recommends the creation of fully updated LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles and to “shed your preconceived notions of keeping your work and home life separate”.

Does an employer need to know your Facebook status or see a myriad of personal photos in order to ascertain that you are a well-rounded individual?
But most importantly, why is it even relevant? In this social media age, have people lost the right to keep a personal life, well, personal? Are these the types of demands that employers can make of employees in 2009?

Often, employers do not even provide the name or position of the recruiter who will be reviewing your job application. A slight disequilibrium in information sharing, perhaps?

Pushing the Privacy Barrier
“…a person’s social media footprint gives employers (and others) the best insight into your passions, interests, communication styles, work habits, work/life balance and all sorts of other valuable information.”

With your complete profile on each social media platform, you will be publicly sharing the following information:

On LinkedIn:
- Your full work history, including dates, locations and specific roles held
- Your picture
- Your interests, hobbies and other information related to your life outside of work
- Participation and involvement in non-paid projects related to your field (open-source, community, volunteer, conference)
- Membership of groups pertaining to your respective field

On Facebook:
- A complete list of your friends and an insight into your respective relationships
- Any personal information you care to divulge such as date and place of birth, marital status, interests, political and religious statuses, personal contact details, academic and work histories
- Pictures posted of you, family & friends from a range of events outside your work life
- Lists of the groups of which you are a member

On Twitter:
- With the goal of developing the biggest network you develop a healthy ratio of followers vs. following, perhaps by setting up auto follow, thus diluting quality with quantity
- You Tweet at least 2-10 a day and maintain a healthy balance between personal and professional tweets

On Your Blog:
- Glimpses into your life outside of work – family, friends, hobbies. This may be a problem if your blog is purely professional
- You include a link to your current resume

When Googled:
- Other than leading to your online blog, webpage or social media profiles, should you possess a name that repeats itself in the World Wide Web, remain hopeful that this link does not lead to potentially discriminating information that is not even about you.

Through your social media footprint, you have given employers (and others) an invaluable insight into your life, both historically and even with event-by-event real-time accounts. Who could use this information? What is their motivation? How will it affect you, your reputation and your personal security?

Too much Openness
What is worth considering is that through social media you may unwittingly provide an identity thief with the very information they require, in order to commit a crime against you. For example, on Twitter, have you thought about who may be following your posts when you broadcast late on a quiet night that you are leaving an empty office or when you gleefully share that you are just about to head off on a two week trip overseas?

Prior to an over enthusiastic launch into social media, consider the risks and use the mediums responsibly. Read posts like this one from Mashable: 25+ Ways to Manage your Social Identity. Do your due diligence, consider why there is an ever increasing number of posts and articles that site the risks of social media:

- Social Media Sites Risk Growing Threats and Attacks
- The Unexpected Dangers of Social Media
- Are we Walking a Fine Line with all this Openness?

“Don’t wanna be a Social Media Rockstar?”
Beyond the oversight and naïvety of posting every iota of your personal history online and sketching out your daily life in microscopic detail on social media, the necessity of doing so, in order to be ‘recruitable’, is questionable.

The simple act of creating an eligibility criterion based on a candidate’s “social media footprint” inadvertently places those who are of a more private disposition at an immediate disadvantage.

Perchance, it is to your advantage, if a company that employs these hiring practices, does not hire you. Perhaps a better fit would be at a company that focuses on your accomplishments, the value of your potential offering and uses the interview process to determine whether you are a well-rounded individual who will fit into their corporate culture.

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Category Archives: Privacy & Security

Avoid Getting Fired on Facebook