With the recent surge of usage of social media and social networking sites, companies and businesses have been able to easily access the online profiles of prospective employees. Some may argue that their participation in social networking is their personal choice and should be kept separate from their professional lives. On the contrary, some may state that who you are and what you do online is a reflection of your personality, and in some cases, your work ethic. Do people in this day and age have an offline persona that is different from their online persona?
Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter allow people to post a wide range of information online and it is up to the user to decide what content they want other people to see. Most sites do loosely monitor what content is posted, but for the most part, the user has a lot of freedom. A problem with the user having so much freedom is that some do not always realize who can actually see their online profiles.
Some social media users join sites like Facebook simply for social purposes. If a young college graduate posts how many drinks he or she had over the weekend on his or her Facebook, he or she is probably not trying to communicate with potential employers but rather with his or her other Facebook friends. Employers are looking into prospective employees social networking accounts and according to an article, ‘Protecting your online identity’, posted in the Kansas State Collegian, “33% of employers decided not to make job offers to potential candidates based on their social networking profiles,” with provocative photos being the number one reason for withdrawing their job offer.
Maintaining a virtual identity, which is the person you are when you are online, does not always need to lead to negative repercussions. The previously mentioned article discusses the new wave of online reputation management websites like profiledefenders.com and reputationmanagementcosnultants.com that help people manage their virtual identities. These sites monitor content posted online and sort through negative and positive material, pushing positive material to the top of search engine results.
These sites can help social network users maintain their virtual identities in a positive way by “creating a unique website that shows the user in a favorable light.” People who are concerned with how their virtual identity will affect their ascribed identity, or what other people think of them, can utilize these online reputation management sites to try to keep a balance between their personal, social lives and their “real-world”, professional lives.
