I have to say, this brought me up short. All my humanity - my generosity, my meanness, my sarcasm and cynicism, my joyous delight, my occasional unkindness, laid out for some unknown person (or machine) to peruse at leisure? Waiting to catch you unawares, like a sly affair come back to haunt hubristic politicians.
I've had a conversation also with some who say that CVs may soon be obsolete. Instead, recruiters will view posts, online articles and Twitter feeds as proof of your professionalism and proficiency. Nervously glancing back at previous Twitter feeds, I may be already doomed.
But also, think of the stress of being always reasonable and measured, always on message, bright and insightful every time you make a comment - never relaxing, always on show.
A few years ago, there was a lot of comment about "your personal brand". I particularly loathed this idea, primarily because it treated real living people like commodities - soap powder or a bar of chocolate. But as David Ogilvy once said, people aren't inanimate and as such can be unpredictable. A Snickers bar, for example, can't have a bad day.
We are in short, human, and we have completely human feelings. So consistency of brand experience can get a bit more complex if you're talking about real people delivering it. And indeed, this is what you see if you look at my timeline. Someone who's been cross, elated, tired, defensive, supportive, joyful - prone to "the heart ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to".
Perhaps it is alarming. Then again, perhaps it's an illustration of what working with me would really be like, and if it's basing the recruitment process on more realistic data, maybe that's the real benefit. This only stands of course if my online persona is honest, rather than carefully crafted. Anyone looking at it, can probably tell that it is!
But there are some interesting questions about privacy, the right to a personal (rather than JUST a work) life. Whether you might ask for an amnesty for your Tweets, or whether you need to explain and chart your change of views within your online presence.
What's your online persona like? Is it truly you or a PR-ed version? Do you stand up to the scrutiny of social media watchers? Have you occasionally been human - and come to regret it?
Whilst I'd generally say my online presence is honest, there is a degree of self-censorship.
ReplyDeleteThere is a definite difference between what I'd post on Facebook to what I'd post on twitter - my Facebook friends are all people I know or have known, whereas my twitter followers are generally people I've never met in person. I'm also conscious that twitter is open to all to view whilst Facebook more private.
My Facebook posts tend to be sillier & more personal, twitter more serious. I'll often talk politics on twitter but rarely on Facebook.
Whilst that might seem like putting a spin on things to suit the audience, don't we all do that anyway (and always have done)? - e.g. - would anyone ever speak to their grandma/wife/kids/friends-down-the-pub/boss in the same language & tone?
I think employers who expect recruits to stay 'on message' all the time will end up with sterile yes-(wo)men. Being able to see a fuller, more honest, more rounded version of recruits might begin to dampen the existing culture where the most plastic candidate gets the job. If not, I fear for all our kids...
There is a difference between Big Data and trawling the internet/social media for iffy statements/lifestyle indicators... Recruiters have their radar on social media, and the activity is spreading and will no doubt continue to do so, unless they are pulled up by the courts/tribunals.
DeleteThis will continue to increase, maybe the next thing will be experts who will use psychological profiling from social media to feed into the recruitment process. Whether this will be any more or less effective than current recruiting methodology will be interesting to see.
Maybe we could just add an extra question at interview - "Is there anything on your social media that might be embarrassing to us if it was discovered by ourselves or a third party?"
One of the dangers of this is companies finding out things that they don't actually want to know. What happens if a company withdraws an offer after looking at social media, which happened to show that person was, e.g. gay, transgender, or had other protected characteristics?
Organisations' social media policies are giving people a clearer idea of the risks attendant on what people say on social media, which will no doubt help in the longer term. Though for younger people this is likely to remain problematical for some time. When I think of some of the things I might have said on social media when I was 14/15 (or even 40), I cringe a bit. Surely younger people should be given a bit more leeway than adults in this area, at least.
From a personal point of view, if the price of counteracting this activity is to make my social media "safe" - what is the point?
This confusion around the personal/professional will run and run, I think, and it could be some time before there is any clarity on this.
Indeed - as the Paris Brown episode has just illustrated! I do think that's a real shame, personally, but my own view is that no-one without an agenda would have looked for tweets two or three years old....
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I put comments and stuff on Facebook which wouldn't go near Linkedin - but I suppose it's all the same internet and able to be trawled. Which probably damns me for all jobs, everywhere!
Thanks for your comment Christof!