Thesis:

Because social media has become so widespread in society, employers can easily find information on potential employees.  It could be viewed as both a positive or a negative that employers can find information on people. In this essay I am going to talk about what aspects of social media can help and hurt potential job seekers when searching for a job.

How Social Media Can Help (Or Hurt) You In Your Job Search

This article is about how employers can look at your social media and see a glimpse of who you are. The author, Jaquelyn Smith, talks about how that can a good thing, but it can also hurt your chances of getting a job if you have something offensive. She includes many statistics to back up her research. One point she often brings up is that many employers have people I their company looking at social media every day, and some use what they find to choose who they hire. This is a credible source because it is written by Forbes which is a credible magazine. The author uses sources that are human resource managers for companies, so they are often the one’s doing the hiring.  I plan to use this source to find many useful statistics and valuable quotes.

Social media could cost you your dream job 

This source by the New York Post, also talks about the pros and cons of employers looking through potential employees social media. The author, Ed Zwirn, writes about what exactly employers will be looking, as far as negative posts, when looking through someone’s social media. Another point he talks about is how not having a presence on social media can hurt your chances of getting a job. Like I said, this article is written by the New York post which is a credible newspaper. The sources, again, are by people who do the hiring in companies; therefore, they know what they are looking for. I will use this article to look at what could hurt someone’s social media but also why not having a presence can hurt.

Why Monitoring Employees’ Social Media Is a Bad Idea 

This article talks about how, though it is understandable to monitor current or future employees social media, it could be doing more harm than good. The author, S. Kumar, talks about how people technically should be able to share their views on social media, and how being too nitpicky while monitoring someone’s account could lead to unnecessary discrimination. He also speaks about how someone’s social media is a creative outlet and should not be judges. The article is written by Time magazine, a very credible source. There are many links to other sources research to back up the points he is making. I am going to use this article to point out that sometimes employers are almost pushing constitutional values when scanning social media.

70% of employers are snooping candidates’ social media profiles

Many of the sites I looked at used carrerbuilder.com as a source for statistics, so I went there to try and find an article from them, and this is what I found. This article goes in depth about what not to include on your social media while looking for a job; however it also talks about things to put on your social media.  They talk about a tactic called “pause before you post” and it’s simply thinking about some key points before you post on your social media. Because so many other credible websites used this site as a source, it is credible itself. The whole purpose of the site it to help people looking for their jobs build their resume and take necessary steps to become a start employee. I will use this site to talk about things that aspiring employees should and should not be doing.