[Ninastar]

Also, Livia once again

[Niall]

I'm in two minds over all this. I mean, I can understand the whole sacking of people that slate colleagues or post about sickies etc on social media, but I don't really like the idea of basing a decision on who gets the job over how dubious their posts are. It sounds a bit too judgemental. (But then again, all that can be easily avoided if you use the proper privacy settings (which the vast majority of morons do not).)

If they started checking to see if people have Tumblr and what their posts are like on there though then I would be royally screwed however so I'm just glad that isn't happening just yet.

[InOne]

http://www.lamebook.com/fired-via-facebook/

Classic example of idiocy if it's real.

[Omah]

huffingtonpost.co.uk - January 25, 2013

A huge 91% of employers use LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to screen candidates. A further:
• 13% rejected a candidate because they lied about their qualifications
• 11% rejected a candidate because they posted inappropriate comments
• The same amount rejected a candidate because they posted inappropriate photos, with another 11% rejecting applicants because of posting negative comments about a previous employer
• 10% were rejected for posting content about them using drugs, while 9% were rejected for posting content about them drinking

With so many applicants for jobs, posting any of the above (even with privacy control) is foolhardy in the extreme.

[Omah]

Originally Posted by InOne

http://www.lamebook.com/fired-via-facebook/

Classic example of idiocy if it's real.

Love it .....

[Jack_]

Originally Posted by Livia

I take it from all you've said that you're not actually an employer, and haven't been for that many job interviews recently.

I don't know anything about getting people to hack into accounts to get information. That's not what we're discussing here and it is, as far as I know, illegal.

It's an employers market. If an employer has to choose between a load of applicants then those applicants will be judged on a whole host of things: what they wear, what they say, their personal grooming, how they present themselves, how they sit in the in interview, eye contact, what's on their CV... and what's publicly available to view on their Facebook page.

If you were going to pay someone to work for you, I think you'd probably want to employ someone who is most likely to turn up on Monday morning and not have the rest of the staff pick up the slack when they're inevitably too hung over to come to work. That would be my assumption if there were lots of drunken pictures and silly comments available for the whole world to access. If you're going to demand freedom of speech, don't expect not to be judged on it.

Not entirely sure what relevance that has to my argument or indeed how it would devalue it in any way regardless of the answer.

And again, yet more assumptions. Just because someone goes out at the weekend and gets absolutely batfaced it does not necessarily have any correlation with their work related performance. People are perfectly able to separate the two and have been doing for many years, just because social networking sites have now come along and given employers yet another avenue by which to judge, outcast and make assumptions on you that doesn't suddenly mean that someone can't have wild weekends yet be Employee of the Month. It's all assumptions and it's grossly unfair.

If and when an employee turned up to work hungover, drunk, or their performance began to slip, then perhaps their personal life could be brought to task and disciplinary action could be handed out, just as before. Second-guessing what potential employees might do, or sacking people for having a good time on their weekend off is just of order.

Originally Posted by Omah

huffingtonpost.co.uk - January 25, 2013



With so many applicants for jobs, posting any of the above (even with privacy control) is foolhardy in the extreme.

Don't you just love youth unemployment and things which make it worse

[Omah]

http://www.ias.org.uk/resources/fact.../workplace.pdf

A survey carried out in December 2007 for Norwich Union Healthcare found a third of employees admitting to having been to work with a hangover. 15% reported having been drunk at work. One in ten employees reported hangovers at work once a month, one in twenty once a week. Work problems resulting from hangovers or being drunk at work included difficulty concentrating; reduced productivity; tiredness and mistakes. The majority (77%) of employers interviewed for this survey identified alcohol as a major threat to employee wellbeing and a factor encouraging sickness absence.

Absenteeism from work through alcohol misuse costs the economy about £1.5bn
• It is generally acknowledged that people with alcohol-related problems have
increased rates of sickness absence from work.
• The value of lost output during sickness has long been regarded as one of the main costs to the economy of alcohol misuse.
• In 2001, across the whole UK workforce, over 176m working days were lost as a result of absenteeism. Between 6 per cent and 15 per cent of this aggregate figure can be attributed to alcohol-related sickness.
• In total, alcohol-related sickness absence is estimated to cost between £1.2bn and £1.8bn, with a middle estimate of approximately £1.5bn.

No employer wants the cost of hiring and then firing a known heavy/binge drinker .....

Forewarned is forearmed .....

[Kizzy]

A couple of party pics are enough to label someone a workshy, useless alcoholic now are they?

[Omah]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

A couple of party pics are enough to label someone a workshy, useless alcoholic now are they?

Not necessarily, but if an applicant has spent the last year "partying" every weekend and posting the results on FB then I think it's fair to say that he or she may well have "lost" a few Monday mornings .....

I certainly did - and a few Tuesdays, too, but that was then (it only became public if you got arrested) and this is now (it's public as soon as it hits the wires or the waves) .....

So, if they can't shape up, they better ship out .....

[the truth]

I know of people who have either been sacked as a direct result of facebook postings or failed to get a particular job. its way more tnan 10% getting vetted too....the behaviour of people on there does expose the moral standards of some people and is more than enough to scare employers away

[Jack_]

It's also worth noting that Facebook isn't necessarily as much of an accurate representation of people as they'd like us to believe and often we believe it is too. Social networking sites allow people to represent themselves in whatever way they wish, you can be whoever you want online. You control what's uploaded, if you don't like a picture - it doesn't go up. It's up to you what things you talk about, like, post etc. It's a very one-sided operation in the sense that we all have the ability to shape our online profiles in a way that we want to represent ourselves, and that is not necessarily a true reflection of one's character, for better or worse. So in one mind you may wish to represent yourself as this outgoing, borderline alcoholic party animal when in fact most of the time you're quite the opposite and are very career driven - but of course that doesn't necessarily make a very interesting profile does it. I question whether using social networking sites as means of seeing someone's 'true self' is a useful tool or not.

Originally Posted by Omah

Not necessarily, but if an applicant has spent the last year "partying" every weekend and posting the results on FB then I think it's fair to say that he or she may well have "lost" a few Monday mornings .....

I certainly did - and a few Tuesdays, too, but that was then (it only became public if you got arrested) and this is now (it's public as soon as it hits the wires or the waves) .....

So, if they can't shape up, they better ship out .....

I see - so one rule for you, and another rule for this generation because of social networking sites. And a few more assumptions about the correlation between drinking and work ethic, tied in with how you lost a 'few Monday mornings' as well. Perfect.

I do hope you enjoy footing part of the tax bill to subsidise these people's unemployment. Because when they're sacked, that's what they become.

[Omah]

Originally Posted by the truth

I know of people who have either been sacked as a direct result of facebook postings or failed to get a particular job. its way more tnan 10% getting vetted too....the behaviour of people on there does expose the moral standards of some people and is more than enough to scare employers away

Yeah, people getting "batarsed" every weekend and then expecting the world to condone such behaviour and pay them buckets of money just for (mostly) turning up at the office/shop/factory, etc ..... well, not any more .....

[Jack_]

Originally Posted by Omah

Yeah, people getting "batarsed" every weekend and then expecting the world to condone such behaviour and pay them buckets of money just for (mostly)turning up at the office/shop/factory, etc ..... well, not any more .....

Ah yes that's it, discredit some classic working class jobs in the process why don't you. As if they aren't already looked down upon already.

Why is it that people feel the need to go out and get wasted in the first place? Why are people seemingly so miserable that they feel the need to forget everything at the weekend by getting as intoxicated as possible? Perhaps if we as a society answer that question and provide a resolution to it, then we'd be in a much better state, no?

Here's a theory - perhaps the state of the economy, the increasing demonisation of the unemployed, low-skilled workers and the welfare dependant, as well as the rising gap between the rich and poor combined with those at the bottom of the social scale lacking the means to break out of the cycle - can explain antisocial behaviour and drug and alcohol problems? Maybe they're so ****ing fed up of being lambasted by those at the top that they rebel and/or turn to drink, drugs and crime as a coping method. Just an idea.

Or of course, maybe they're just feral alcoholic worthless degenerate rats that should be thrown to wolves...as the media would have you believe.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Omah

Yeah, people getting "batarsed" every weekend and then expecting the world to condone such behaviour and pay them buckets of money just for (mostly) turning up at the office/shop/factory, etc ..... well, not any more .....

Well you yourself have admitted to being 'batarsed' do you deserve to spend years on the dole regardless of your education, training and experience?
This whole thing is ludicrous.
Good job the 'Bullingdon club' lot didn't have a facebook isn't it?.....

[Omah]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Well you yourself have admitted to being 'batarsed' do you deserve to spend years on the dole regardless of your education, training and experience?

Times change - steelworkers were once paid to drink pints of beer "on the job" - now there's no steel industry, works, jobs or drinking "on the job" .....

On the up-side, nearly all jobs in the UK today are simple, safe and clean - there's just not enough of them to go round, so those who want to work should conform to employers expectations and not expect to get a job because they've got a vocational degree .....

Good job the 'Bullingdon club' lot didn't have a facebook isn't it?.....

Exactly .....

To return to the topic :

Recruiters across the UK are warning too many young people are risking their career opportunities because of what they post on social network sites.

The Recruitment Society and The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) say most employers now search job candidates online.

Katerina Rudiger from the CIPD says it is important to check your privacy settings on sites like Facebook.

"We all have nights out but it is best not to advertise it," she said.

Don't boast it, don't post it .....

[the truth]

Originally Posted by Jack_

Ah yes that's it, discredit some classic working class jobs in the process why don't you. As if they aren't already looked down upon already.

Why is it that people feel the need to go out and get wasted in the first place? Why are people seemingly so miserable that they feel the need to forget everything at the weekend by getting as intoxicated as possible? Perhaps if we as a society answer that question and provide a resolution to it, then we'd be in a much better state, no?

Here's a theory - perhaps the state of the economy, the increasing demonisation of the unemployed, low-skilled workers and the welfare dependant, as well as the rising gap between the rich and poor combined with those at the bottom of the social scale lacking the means to break out of the cycle - can explain antisocial behaviour and drug and alcohol problems? Maybe they're so ****ing fed up of being lambasted by those at the top that they rebel and/or turn to drink, drugs and crime as a coping method. Just an idea.

Or of course, maybe they're just feral alcoholic worthless degenerate rats that should be thrown to wolves...as the media would have you believe.

self pity will get them nowhere..take a look at the paralympics, those legends can run swim and cycle at top speed with missing bodyparts, yet some people with bad attitudes cant even get up and educate themselves to get a job.

[Jack_]

Originally Posted by the truth

self pity will get them nowhere..take a look at the paralympics, those legends can run swim and cycle at top speed with missing bodyparts, yet some people with bad attitudes cant even get up and educate themselves to get a job.

And how large is this 'some people' you speak of as a proportion of the population? 10%? 1%? Or more likely...0.1%?

In other words, a very small minority.

[Omah]

Originally Posted by the truth

self pity will get them nowhere..take a look at the paralympics, those legends can run swim and cycle at top speed with missing bodyparts, yet some people with bad attitudes cant even get up and educate themselves to get a job.

Yeah, chips on shoulders the size of barn doors, some on'em .....

[AnnieK]

One of the biggest reasons that employers have turned to social media to screen candidates is due to the fact that they used to use normal referencing procedures where they would contact the previous employer for details of work ethic, sickness, attitude to colleagues etc etc (there was never a debate on the fairness of that). However in this litigious world we live in where people sue people, companies are now that scared of revealing any derogatory information that the standard reference now just confirms dates worked and job title. No useful information at all so employers are forced to look at other avenues to gain information about prospective employees before they spend £1000s on recruiting.

Jack you mentioned footing the bill for youth unemployment? Do you know how much sick days cost the economy on an annual basis - according to the CBI around £17 billion with £3billion being taken dishonestly. That figure is footed by companies who are already teetering on administration and liquidation in some circumstances with numerous jobs in the balance. Can you blame them for checking people out before they employ them?

[Ammi]

..I have mixed feelings about this..I’m not really affected in this way but I do have restrictions about Facebook, which for me means I choose not to have it at all...although I do believe in free speech, I also think that nothing is really totally free and you can put pics of nights out or whatever on facebook/internet...but you have to accept that there might be consequences in certain areas..whether that’s right or wrong doesn’t really matter because it’s a fact and the rest is just subjective...it doesn’t mean that you can’t do a perfectly good job in your employment, if you happen to like to have a Friday night on the town..but some employers may decide it reveals something about you..you can never stop people having opinions/making judgements, with or without the internet..., so that’s something that every person has to decide when they put information on Facebook...there are a lot of employments where it probably wouldn’t matter, but there are also some where it would....and that’s for you to know whether you think it could be judged for your chosen employment....

..I think if we accept all of the positives about the internet/facebook etc , of which there are many..we also have to accept that maybe there’ll be some negatives as well, not just the extreme 'sinister' ones but things like this..and if we want to be ‘totally free’ in what we say/do...well, they might just affect us....

[Me. I Am Salman]

I was reading some article the other week about how Twitter has changed over the years and it said something about the first person to be fired for a tweet they made was in 2006, so it's nothing new

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Jack_

Not entirely sure what relevance that has to my argument or indeed how it would devalue it in any way regardless of the answer.

And again, yet more assumptions. Just because someone goes out at the weekend and gets absolutely batfaced it does not necessarily have any correlation with their work related performance. People are perfectly able to separate the two and have been doing for many years, just because social networking sites have now come along and given employers yet another avenue by which to judge, outcast and make assumptions on you that doesn't suddenly mean that someone can't have wild weekends yet be Employee of the Month. It's all assumptions and it's grossly unfair.

If and when an employee turned up to work hungover, drunk, or their performance began to slip, then perhaps their personal life could be brought to task and disciplinary action could be handed out, just as before. Second-guessing what potential employees might do, or sacking people for having a good time on their weekend off is just of order.

Well actually, you not being an employer or someone who has been for many interviews recently is extremely relevant to the issue. Of course you can still have an opinion, but it'd be like you coming on here getting all outraged about changes to the MOT when you don't own a car.

You do not have a right to a job. If youth unemployment is a huge issue for you, you should be thinking about the ways to impress an employer, not expect him make exceptions for you because you can't control yourself (I obviously don't mean you personally here...). If you want the job, put your settings on private. If you don't mind the world seeing what you're up to... leave your privacy settings as they are, but don't moan when people look at your page to see what kind of person you are, what kind of character you have and whether they want to pay you to represent their company. If they want to go out at the weekend and "get totally batfaced" then that's their choice. If they're smart they won't write about it on Facebook or it'll come back to bite them on the arse. As I said before, if you want free speech, you have to take the downside too.

Ninastar mentions she works with children and she is fully aware she would have to be careful about what she puts on Facebook. That's because she's smart. She didn't say that she's going to live her whole life being an angel. (although obviously... you are Ninastar).

Once someone's employed there's a whole raft of laws protecting them. It's much easier to weed out the potential problems before you start paying them money every month and save yourself the trouble of disciplinary panels, warnings and ultimately a tribunal. Employ the best person for the job at the start and use every tool available to make your choice.

[Jack_]

Originally Posted by Livia

Well actually, you not being an employer or someone who has been for many interviews recently is extremely relevant to the issue. Of course you can still have an opinion, but it'd be like you coming on here getting all outraged about changes to the MOT when you don't own a car.

You do not have a right to a job. If youth unemployment is a huge issue for you, you should be thinking about the ways to impress an employer, not expect him make exceptions for you because you can't control yourself (I obviously don't mean you personally here...). If you want the job, put your settings on private. If you don't mind the world seeing what you're up to... leave your privacy settings as they are, but don't moan when people look at your page to see what kind of person you are, what kind of character you have and whether they want to pay you to represent their company. If they want to go out at the weekend and "get totally batfaced" then that's their choice. If they're smart they won't write about it on Facebook or it'll come back to bite them on the arse. As I said before, if you want free speech, you have to take the downside too.

Ninastar mentions she works with children and she is fully aware she would have to be careful about what she puts on Facebook. That's because she's smart. She didn't say that she's going to live her whole life being an angel. (although obviously... you are Ninastar).

Once someone's employed there's a whole raft of laws protecting them. It's much easier to weed out the potential problems before you start paying them money every month and save yourself the trouble of disciplinary panels, warnings and ultimately a tribunal. Employ the best person for the job at the start and use every tool available to make your choice.

I guess then that begs the question, if having little experience of something invalidates your opinion, why is it that MP's are so often commenting on and making policies for people that they have absolutely no contact and experiences with? If the people running this country are going to pass judgement on things they have next to no experience of, I may as well myself. That's also like saying a straight person's opinion on gay marriage isn't as valid as they aren't gay themselves and so couldn't fully understand.

I never said anyone has a right to a job, but hey, surely it's better for everyone to be in one, no? If we're just going to go about sacking people willy nilly and putting more power in the hands of employers, organisations and the market, especially when there's unemployment problems in this country, then as long as tax payers are happy footing the bill for their welfare support, I'm all for it. Sack people or refuse people jobs for posting questionable material on their personal online profiles all you want, but you're only going to give yourself more problems in the end.

On the point of employers looking at your Facebook page to see who 'you really are', I refer you to a post I made a bit earlier in the thread about how I question whether social networking sites actually are an accurate representation of one's true self, character and personality, for better or worse. I'm not entirely convinced a few static images and lines of text on a web page can truly reflect what somebody is like as a person in real life, or, more importantly - an employee.

[Omah]

Originally Posted by Livia

Well actually, you not being an employer or someone who has been for many interviews recently is extremely relevant to the issue. Of course you can still have an opinion, but it'd be like you coming on here getting all outraged about changes to the MOT when you don't own a car.

So true .....

[Jack_]

Ah, the wonders of not responding to arguments someone's presented you with, but happily quoting other people's responses to the same person. Funny eh