Essay on Employers and Background Checks

Introduction

What we post and share online may have a significant impact in our professional lives. In the contemporary world technology has taken a toll in the many entities that surface in the world today. Businesses operations have gone digital and so are the many departments that constitute business entities. More specifically, the human resource department has digitized its form of employee scrutiny as they carry out their day to day activities. However, when it comes to hiring new staff, a background check has especially in the internet has become an essential step in the hiring process. Even though people present resumes, cover letters and good references, employers are never satisfied until they check up the internet for more information. Nowadays most records have been digitized and therefore thee is a lot to find about a potential employee or a stuff member. In this regard, this paper examines the complications of social media background checks of both the employed and the potential employees.

In most of the developed countries, people use credit cards to perform most of their day to day transactions. Therefore, jobs related to money handling, employers might want to have background check on the credit history of a potential employees (Maurer). Employers want to know how a person has handed their credit card and if they reliable in repayment of debts they owe to financial institutions as well as other entities. A good Credit card handling depicts higher degree of responsibility which is an essential qualifying feature in most of employees around the globe. If a person is responsible with their own finances, they can be relied on to be responsible within organizations and the vice versa is true. In this regard, portraying a great sense of responsibility in the social media is a booster towards securing a good job.

Qualified people have been denied jobs based on their background information in the many social media platforms there is. Among the many information people update in their social media accounts is their nationality, gender, marital status, age as well as religion which affect their perception in the job market (Priyadarshini, p.972). Since the discrimination has been a major problem in the contemporary world, such background information may have negative effects on the employee in subject. Besides such specific information is never included in the cover letters, resumes and references. For instance, when an employer checks you up in your social media account and finds out you are of different race and religion from which the business or the employer is based on, it can bring about impossibilities. Race and religion have denied many people good job opportunities which could transform their lives. Therefore, if only the employer could not perform a social media screening, then a qualified person could get deserving jobs. In this regard, social media checks disqualify a qualified person.

Within the work environment, there is a lot of stress and pressure from the management as well as clients. However, when evening comes and people go home after work, they go into social media and unload their feelings and recommendations they may wish in their lives. Such may posts reflect on the personality of the involved person in the eyes of employers (Bishop, p.3). In the case of enthusiastic posts regarding the jobs and life generally, an employer will be motivated by such an employee upon checking them up in the social media. Conversely, upon seeing sad and pessimistic posts from employees, an employer may be demotivated and despise such employees to the extent of firing such people. Today social media has been used as a judgement platform for both employees and employers in the business world. For this reason, employees should always be cautious of what they post in their social media accounts.

Employers are looking to know more information on their employees. Within the internet, many people upload data and information of their every step in their life. However, sometimes the social media isn’t enough and employers search in the internet for more information. For instance, it is hard for a person to upload data and information regarding their criminal history and other malpractices in life. Therefore, performing online checks is an important step so as to minimize criminal activity within organizations (Sameen, p.29). However, some accounts are usually private thereby permitting very little information to be recovered about potential employees. For this reason, it backgrounds checks can be limited to what other people and entities have written regarding a subject person. Some information may be true and others false and hence it becomes a challenge to make right judgments though necessary.

Following the need to communicate and brand oneself as digital, many people around the globe have at least an account in the many social media platforms in the world. However, in most cases people especially the youth, they are prone to entering false data in their accounts (Driver). This data makes them appear very successful and learned people which could not be the case. For instance, in Facebook profiles, some people have their accounts stating that they went to big universities like Harvard and graduated with excellent grades. Such information is in most cases false and any employer checking up such a person for an employment position can be easily duped thereby making wrong judgements.

On the contary, some people especially the older people have their social media accounts but they rarely update on the endeavors of their lives. Such people may have been doing great work including volunteer work which signifies service to the community and humanity at large. They may have been recognized for great works but they did not upload such achievements in the social media. In most cases a resume is usually a brief information and cannot capture every detail of one’s career. Therefore, upon searching such people in the social media, employers may make wrong judgements. Such people may appear naïve, ignorant and dull and in most cases, jobs require charismatic people full of energy towards driving success in business entities. In this regard, for people who are not active in social media, employees may consider them old school and following the technological advancements, such people may be disadvantaged in the employment competition.

Nowadays jobs are scarce and everybody is trying their best to enter the job market and make a living out of it. Out of such urges to succeed in life, people will always want to paint a very nice picture in their social media just incase they are checked up. People will decorate their profiles with great achievements just to impress employees and gain ana advantage in the competitive job market. Background check in the social media has revolutionized the job market today and It has portrayed some of its pros and cons. However, the world today needs young goal oriented and charismatic people who are able to maneuver the digital world and make success out of it. For this reason, I believe the practice of performing background checks is essential since the more active in the social media becomes, the more technology he is exposed to. Therefore, such a person relates with latest updates around the globe which is useful for continuity and operations of business.

Looking at person or even reading what they have written doesn’t say much regarding their personality. What defines most is what people share in the social media platform when they are in their right minds without any pressure. Such posts speak more about a person. For instance, if a person always posts jokes in their social media platforms, people assume such person is a joker as well. For serious and motivational posts people, they depict seriousness and motivation to achieving the best in life. Such people are considered as potential employers who would use their personality to affect organizations positively as opposed to the jokers. For this reason, the kind of posts people make in their social media platforms, they can really affect their professional lives.

Conclusion

The future is unpredictable and technology is changing the world and so are the people in this globe. Everything nowadays is being exposed in social media and internet platforms and therefore there is little to hide. Therefore, in relation to my support of the online background checks, people need to embrace technology and responsibility so as to be on the good side of nature when opportunities come about. Employees are not to be blamed since the world today needs digitalized stuff of good character. Exposing criminal activity and bad credit history over the internet has made employers aware of the personality a person holds before welcoming them to their organizations. In this regard, social media background checks will continue to rise and in future become a judgment platform for future employees.

Works Cited

Bishop, Kelsey. What’s your status: Employee fairness perceptions of social media monitoring. Diss. Middle Tennessee State University, (2015): 1-18

Driver, Saige. “Social Media Screenings Increase For Job Seekers”. Business News Daily, 2018, https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2377-social-media-hiring.html.

Maurer, Roy. “Screening Candidates’ Social Media May Lead To TMI, Discrimination Claims”. SHRM, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/screening-social-media-discrimination-claims.aspx.

Priyadarshini, Chetna, Y. L. N. Kumar, and Rajneesh Ranjan Jha. “Employer attractiveness through social media: A phenomenological study.” The qualitative report 22.4 (2017): 969-983.

Sameen, Sara, and Samia Cornelius. “Social networking sites and hiring: How social media profiles influence hiring decisions.” Journal of Business Studies Quarterly 7.1 (2015): 27-35.