How facebook negatively affects employment

As social networking sites continue to grow on a daily basis, so do the potential risks that come alongside using them. The continuous growth of sites such as Facebook is especially now being seen in increasingly high usage by hiring managers and human resource professionals. These hiring managers now use sites like Facebook in attempts to find out more specific information about the job ctoria R. Brown, 2011). Although some people may believe that Facebook facilitates the hiring process, I believe that Facebook can have a very negative effect on many different aspects of employment. I do not think that by looking at an applicant’s Facebook profile, hiring managers can appropriately judge if an applicant is an eligible candidate for the job or not. Through a Facebook profile, I think that not only a job applicant is at risk, but also a manager could be at risk of making a preferential consideration of the applicant, also relating to the validity of how one’s Facebook profile relates to the job.
While looking through an applicant’s Facebook profile may seem like an easy way to obtain information about the characteristics or attributes of a person, there can be many biases that come along with this. Some applicants won’t use social networking sites at all while some may use them to document their whole lives. In the 2009 survey done by CareerBuilders.com 35% employers said that they did not hire an applicant due to what they found on the applicant’s social networking sites. Some of these reasons were: posting provocative or inappropriate pictures, showing information relating with alcohol of illegal drug use, poor communication skills, or revealing information that falsifies qualifications listed in a resume (E. Daly Vaughn, 2011). I feel like the job candidate however is in a lose-lose situation. Due to community norms and social desirability, applicants’ shared information might be distorted. These community norms toward self-promotion and the desire to fit