Potential Employers Ask For Your Facebook Login Details!

Most people have a Facebook account and/or Twitter feed. If you’re like me, you use these feeds for your own personal use. Share photos of you and your friends having a good time on a night out, or a day out having fun or even holiday snaps. You write updates as a means of interacting with your friends on mass. That’s what social media is, a social tool where you share your social stories and  experiences. But what do you do if you are looking for a new job and the employer demands to see your page and your content, even if your profile is private? This is a sad reality that is happening more and more.

Stalking Your Profiles

Whether they tell you or not, it’s possible that any potential employers may be searching for you on social networks and spying on your feeds and content. They want to know what you are like, how you behave, are you trust worthy etc. That’s all fine, they need to know the person they will be hiring can and will do the job asked of them. But spying on your personal pages where you are NOT expected to represent a business and are 100% free to act how ever you like, is not fair. Your online social media activity does not stop you being able to do a job and so you it should not factor into the decision making of giving you the job. Of course, if you have a public profile, you are allowing yourself to be scrutinised in this manner. If you don’t want his to happen, go into your settings and make your accounts private, you have every right to stop them seeing your feeds.

Private Profiles Not Safe Either- They Can Ask For Your Login Data!

Mashable have declared that American Universities and companies have even asked for peoples login information so they can see everything! The American Civil Liberties Union has been outraged filed complaints about this and rightly so. Even if you refuse to give the company or university your login data, they can ask you to log into your profiles during an interview and explain photos, content and updates then and there. If your profile is locked and private and they ask to access it, you have every right to politely decline. Your Facebook activity does not represent your work ethic and is of no relevance to your ability to do said job/study. These personal accounts are just that, they wouldn’t dare ask you to pass them over your diary so they can “understand you better” so don’t let the walk all over your social media profiles and judge you that way. Everyone has the right to a private, out of office persona away from the boss and colleagues.

Key Take Away

So what if you go out every Saturday night and get snapped having a drink on Facebook? That doesn’t mean you’re reckless, doesn’t mean you will go into work with a hangover, it just means you had fun in your personal time. So what if you write one moody status about having a bad day at work? Happens to the best of us, you have one day when everything gets on top of you and you may write a one off update about how frustrated you are. Might be a little silly, particularly if you’re friends with your boss, but when it’s  your  own page you are free to express your feelings as you wish. Yes, these accounts do represent you but they do not show every character trait, every pro and con, every aspect of you.  By no means should you be reckless and rude with your accounts but you shouldn’t be scared to post those photos of your birthday night out, having fun in the pool on holiday, write one narky update after a bad day. Your page is your page, keep it private and be brave and say no when asked to share and explain. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for your free time behaviour.

~Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasabicube