In this day and age, when social networking sites are monitored by corporate companies whilst hiring candidates, where can individuals finally let their guards down? DNA explores...
Today, social networking websites are considered an extension of an individual’s personality, but that should be no parameter to determine their output at work. Corporate companies are increasingly snooping around the social networking profiles of prospective candidates much before they are taken on board. This has been happening a lot in the recent times and more often than not, information about one’s private life comes out in the open.
Diya Malhotra, 25-year-old marketing professional with an MBA, was being considered for a job at a leading multinational company. After clearing the first round of interviews she was asked to come for the final round of personal interviews, scheduled a week later. When she did come, she was shocked to hear the kind of questions the professionals conducting the interview asked her. “I went in expecting to be asked about my work, but instead they asked me how often I’d go on vacations and how often I party. They even said I wasn’t allowed to have an office romance. Initially, it came as a shock to me, but I realised later on that they would have snooped around on my profile on Facebook and seen my holiday pictures. Since then I have changed my privacy settings on social networking sites,” she says.
While some have been rejected after being considered potentially reliable candidates, some have fallen into trouble after posting remarks about a co-worker in jest. Surekha Mahadik went through a situation that taught her to never discuss work on a social networking site. “A collegue and I were just routinely catching up on Facebook and happened to say something about another colleague in our team in good jest. She read it, all hell broke lose and the next thing we knew, we were summoned by the HR managers for a lecture on office etiquettes,” she recalls.
Pyschologist Seema Hingorany is however, not in favour of this kind of prying around that happens. “Corporates snooping around and doing background checks is not something that should be encouraged. A person may be completely different in personal and professional domains and sometimes pictures may be misleading. You can’t judge someone on the basis of his/her profile and the number of pictures or friends he/she has on Facebook. These sites are a place to have fun and be yourself, but at the same time, you can’t be judged for what you post and comment,” she explains.
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