Aug 9 - Does Not Having a Facebook Page Make You ‘Suspicious’ to Employers?

Remember when the debate over “shoulder surfing” — that is, companies requiring job applicants to log into their social-media accounts so the interviewer could examine the applicant’s page in full — flared up earlier this year? At the time, a common response from readers was that they’d simply delete or deactivate their Facebook pages or make them unsearchable and then deny having an account.

Well, here comes the bad news: not having a Facebook page can be detrimental to job seekers.

People without Facebook pages, in particular, are viewed as “suspicious” by hiring managers, according to Forbes. The article says,


I’ve heard both job seekers and employers wonder aloud about what it means if a job candidate doesn’t have a Facebook account. Does it mean they deactivated it because it was full of red flags? Are they hiding something? … It does seem that increasingly, it’s expected that everyone is on Facebook in some capacity, and that a negative[..]umption is starting to arise about those who reject the Big Blue Giant’s siren call.

According to a new study from recruitment-technology firm Jobvite, a whopping 92% of recruiters use social media today. Although LinkedIn is the most popular destination, two-thirds of respondents say they now use Facebook and more than half say they use Twitter.

In a recent article, German media outlet Tagesspiegel kicked up a controversy in its exploration of what not having a social-media presence says about you. It quotes a psychologist who says (translated from German via Google Translate), “The Internet has become a natural part of life … It is possible that you get with virtual friends and feelings of positive feedback.” The article then goes on to point out that perpetrators of two mass shootings (James Holmes in Colorado and Anders Breivik in Norway) were both ciphers on major social-media sites and suggests that such “absolute abstinence” from social-media sites indicates a possibly dangerous level of withdrawal from society.

Or, as tech blog Slashdot summed it up (with implied skepticism): “Not having a Facebook account could be the first sign that you are a mass murker.”

That’s hyperbolic, of course, but there is a small amount of evidence to suggest that people who use social-media sites in moderation are more likely to be emotionally healthy: a study of more than 7,200 young people published last year in the journal Pediatrics found that adolescents who say they never or hardly ever use the Internet are more likely to be depressed than moderate users.

The real point, however, is less about the reality of a link between social-media use and emotional fitness, and more about the evolving perceptions of employers. It’s increasingly clear that recruiters have a set of expectations about a would-be employee’s social-media presence, and it’s worth keeping that in mind as you go about shaping your online identity.


Source: Time Magazine

that !!ing site needs to die

Not on FB and I have a job so IDGAF

We have some dumb[..] people in this world.

This is beyond stupid and pretty much makes no sense. If anything people who are obsessed with social media sites are losing out at life.

atleast have a LinkedIn .

Imagine if Facebook is mandatory to have.....

Pretty stupid, they got no money for online bills/cellphone bills that's why they want a job

i got BX.. fuc i wanna b on FB for?

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[pic] This is the stupidest !! ive read on the interwebs. So because i never had a facebook or twitter i am a potential mass murker and a depressed individual?? FOH!
[pic]They better not make them bull!! sites mandatory to have a job.

I have BX. That is all i need.

[pic]

The world we live in is[..] backwards. We have computers that weed thru resumes picking out keywords we have standardized testing.to.get a !!ing minimum wage job. We have.concerns with if.an applicant has a facebook.or not or is a social media butterfly. Athletes draft status sometime hinges.on their social behavior. Not to say you shouldnt be cautious with potential pro athletes but also understand one weekend of fun doesn't equal irresponsibility. Not to get off track the requirements and.focus is atrocious and it makes me quiver to think about the direction we headed in.

Yeah I found that out about the resume scanning for keywords years ago. I revised my wife's resume and she almost landed this job making 70k. She had it until they checked her driving record and saw that she had a speeding ticket the previous year. [pic]


Oh yeah I'm not on FB either

well said sir [pic]

I hate when i meet people and they are like...
"you dont have a facebook!?" [pic]

As if not having a facebook is like not having a dik..

FB was cool before i realized all my information was being collected and sold, without me making any profit from it. [pic]

as if being a minority didn't already make me suspicious enough.

People look at me like [pic] when I say I don't have a Facebook. And I'm like [pic] nope .

sounds like this was written to combat all the sites and articles tellin u to tell an employer go !! themselves if they ask about ur facebook..so now it comes out ur a psychotic murker thas not gettin no type of job for havin not havin a facebook, they try to trick niccas every time b, i sware

word. !! I need to be openly attention whoring on the internet for when i can build MY OWN mother!!ing site