You finally leave the job interview and feel overwhelmed. Your position is reviewed among the other applicants, and you will receive a call shortly regarding the start of work.
The week goes by, and you receive the call already, but you are surprised that the caller wishes you the best wishes in your future career, and that there is currently no vacancy in the company. After being stunned and feeling enormously disappointed as you are just around the corner from getting a job, begin to insist on them to find out why you rejected the job. After a period of urgency, they allude to you the last thing you expected: your personal Facebook account shows a discouraging personality to work with us!
They monitor your social accounts
A recent study by Career Builders in 2018 says that 70% (7 out of 10) of employers are browsing social media for applicants to work as part of the job evaluation process. More importantly, 57% - more than half - of those employing social media research for applicants found content that led them to decide not to hire them.
A study showed that 66% of employers - about two-thirds - said they use search engines to learn more about applicants
The study, which was conducted on a random sample of 1,000 managers and a human resources officer in charge of the recruitment process in organizations in different fields, industries and diverse sizes, included further findings regarding the recruitment practices of new applicants. The study showed that jobs related to the fields of information technology and manufacturing are more in search of enterprises for the digital presence of applicants to work for them compared to other jobs.
The study also showed that 66% of employers - about two-thirds - said they use search engines to learn more about applicants, while about half (47%) said that if they do not find any electronic presence at all for applicants, whether in search engines or Social media, this reduces the chances of communicating with that person for a personal interview.
The study showed a huge difference between the results over several years. It was conducted for the first time in 2006, when social media was in its infancy. The results showed that only 12% of companies use social media as a tool for prospective employees. The figure rose to 22% in 2008 and then to 25% in 2010.Lastly, it jumped to 70% in 2018 and is expected to rise further in the next few years. (1, 2)
Why are they watching you? What are they looking for ?!
The enormous spread of social media in the last decade has made the electronic presence of all predictable. Of course, social accounts express their personalities adequately in most cases, or at least enough to give your potential manager an overview of your natural personality and public interests, if you have something that sets you apart from others, and of course if you have shameful or destructive ideas that threaten the stability of the work environment. That will host you soon.
According to the same study, when employers browse the social media accounts of potential job applicants, employers focus on four axes :
* 55% said they were looking for information that could support the applicant's access to the job.
* 50% said they want to make sure that the applicant has a “professional online persona” .
* 34% look for what others are writing about this person and their opinion on it both professionally and personally.
* 22% seek reasons why this applicant should not be employed.
According to another study by Yougov, published in the spring of 2017, it said that at least one in five people lose their employment opportunities after reading their social media accounts. The study identified Facebook as the most visible network of applicants, managers and human resources staff, right after LinkedIn's business and recruitment network, followed by Twitter, followed by Instagram.
The study clearly showed that employers still consider that face-to-face interviews are not the ultimate measure of employment decision-making, and that they tend to look for applicants' history beyond the scope of their curriculum vitae, to ascertain their ability to adapt in the cultural environment. Only on the professional side but on the personal and social side, making sure that his presence does not cause problems that harm business environments in the short or long term, and this information is of course not provided by the CV or the first job interviews. (3)
Your publications may be in your favor or against you
The studies not only referred to the role of social media in deciding whether or not to be hired by institutions, managers and companies, but also conducted a survey on the most important publications that may motivate the manager to hire you and also the most important publications that motivate him to hinder your employment in the company, even if they Your CV and career experience are well suited to this site.
According to a recent study by Career Builders , publications that may lead to a manager reviewing your employment decision are mostly in two areas: violence and inappropriate content on the one hand, and content that is a socially unsatisfactory sign on the other. Foremost among the publications that motivate managers to reject new applicants are those that contain inappropriate meanings, be they pictures, videos or written content, at 40%, followed by publications on drinking or alcoholism at 36%.
In third place are publications of a racist nature that attack races, religions and the rights of others, followed by publications that carry the praise of the applicant for racist and criminal acts and encourage them. The rest of the list of behavior that may lead to the lack of acceptance in the job ranges from bad public behavior such as insulting former managers, for example, indicating that it contains poor behavior in communicating with the other, or disclose the secrets of his former company. (1, 4, 5)
On the other hand, the recent study by Career Builders identified a set of social media behaviors that helped managers make the decision to approve employment for a group of applicants. 37% of employers said that the job information published by the applicant through their social accounts encourages them to make a decision to hire them, while 34% of them said that the "creative" content published by the applicant on his social pages attracts their view and gives them a good view of his career.
He also came up with the virtual character in which the applicant appears in an advanced position to urge managers to accept, and show that he has a wide level of interests both in the context of his profession or within the general interests of things. Other reasons varied from good communication skills to awards and celebrations on his social pages. Lastly, the concerns of managers and employers are to consider the number of followers of social media accounts, with only 18% of them interested in this reason and considered it an encouraging reason for hiring the applicant. (1, 3, 4)
Social networking speeds up the opportunity to seize the opportunity .. or miss it
With the discontent that employees may feel about these studies that tell them directly that their social accounts are monitored in one way or another, or are used in their job evaluation process, this denial will not change the truth: managers and HR employees are already browsing your social accounts. Keep them in mind as they make the final decision whether or not to hire you.
At first glance, it may seem like the best solution to this situation is to completely hide your electronic presence by deleting all your social accounts on different networks, and the comfort of this whole headache as Facebook is not so important, but this solution in itself is more harm, because the study reported Forty-seven percent of employers will not contact you to invite you to an interview if they don't have any online presence at all because they would consider your complete absence from digital presence as a sign of disrespect for the current nature of the world. (6, 7)
In the end, your social media accounts express important aspects of your personality, and knowing your personality is an important key to any employer testing the feasibility of hiring them. Your complete absence from social media is not on your side, and your uncontrolled posts that raise wide question marks around you are not on your side. Be natural, exhibit an atypical virtual personality, and later you may discover that your Facebook or Twitter account was an additional reason to hire you in your dream company, not just your resume or LinkedIn account.