I Flunked My Social Media Background Check. Will You?
7th July 2011
Your next job application could require a social media background check. Odds are, you have no clue what that means. Nobody does. It’s new and scary and probably scours the Web for pictures of you puking on the beach.
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In fact it screens for just a handful of things: aggressive or violent acts or assertions, unlawful activity, discriminatory activity (for example, making racist statements), and sexually explicit activity. And it doesn’t pass on identifiable photos of you at all. In other words, your drunken kegstand photos are probably fine as long as you’re not wearing a T-shirt with a swastika or naked from the waist down.
Basically, it just wants to know if you’re the kind of asshole who will cause legal hassles for an employer.
Bad news for the Let It All Hang Out generations. Yet another excellent reason to steer clear of Facebook and Twitter.