Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and many other social networking websites have taken a place of a joy ride; everyone is using this social phenomenon when they need a break from their work. I believe for many in this increasingly implicit world having a chat with a cyber friend brings some meaning, if not a respite from the grind of work.Yet, I am surprised at the time that my social network friends spend on these sites-they must be spending many hours every day posting slapstick or goofy pictures, worthless links, and creepy comments about others. If only their employers knew.Actually, their employers do know. Increasingly companies are compelled to monitor the behavior of employees through social media employment background checks, who post, share regularly or they have a Barron account on the social networks.Human Resources with the help from their information technology department can data mine the social networking websites to find prospective employees. Additionally, they can function as a data source for social media employment background checks, so beware what you post. The world is watching.Employers are keen to know about your social media background and they are checking it on a seven point comprehensive criteria. The only way to survive social media employment background checks is to know how employers are going to look over your social networking profiles. This is how you can get your next job hunt success and this is how you can survive at your current employment.Seven Point Criteria for Social Media Employment Background Checks by Employers: Corporate Disparagement: Employers are looking for a person who is involved in bad mouthing about a company; they are focusing on a pattern of negative comments made by an employee for its current and past workplace and or about his/her past or current work mates.
Tendency towards Violent Behavior: In social media search, often times people are found to be expressing themselves in very violent ways and about violent acts. And employers don’t want a violent person at their workplace which can jeopardize the peaceful work environment.
The Indication of Drug Use: We certainly found examples where people talk about smoking marijuana or being involved in the drugs in a way that really isn’t appropriate like an underage person drinking. Employers are keen to know about it.
Poor Judgment: There are things like where people are talking on their Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or other sites about doing things that really show poor judgment in the way they think about stuff and that certainly is the thing employers want to avoid.
Racist or Anti Social Behavior: Unfortunately, there are people like that, that express themselves rather aggressively in the social media environment and they talk about hating other groups, hating individuals because they are part of those groups. Hating your religious or sexual orientation of some kind. Typically this is not kind of a person they want to have as their employee and that’s another social media employment background checks criterion.
Inappropriate Sexual Behavior: This is one of the areas where people sometime feel differently about one way or another. The definition of inappropriate is something that you really want to define very clearly. But if people are going way over the line, the obvious things like child pornography and other type of sexually explicit content and there is an evidence of such doing then an employer will surely use it as a social media background checks criterion to screen you out of employment.
Honesty and Integrity: And that’s what it is really all about, if people are talking about ripping off the company or stealing a hotdog from a street vendor when he was not looking, or something like that and bragging about it in their social media site, this is probably not someone who is going to get hired by an employer.These seven points are the basic criterion for the social media employment background checks that employers are now considering for their hiring process and they are certainly help them to screen out their best employee in such a scarce employment situation.But one thing that has to be mentioned about social media employment background checks is that they also possess a positive element. A person who is involved in charity, professional activities, and have recommendations on their social media profiles can attract an employer to hire you as their next prospective employee.