Can’t Get Hired? Here’s a Reason Why

We’re Starting to Get a Picture

Despite spending a considerable amount of time tweaking job applications and resumes to near perfection, a significant number of job applicants can’t get hired. It’s as if they’ve stamped a huge “Don’t Even Think About Hiring Me” warning on the front of everything printed, faxed, or emailed to prospective employers who are, seemingly, only happy to oblige. But why?

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Why do people, such as the woman who, in a CBS column, complained of not finding work even after looking for a job eight months in a row, remain unemployed? Are jobs that scarce? Are people so inexperienced or unqualified, they can’t find work at all? What’s really going on here? What are we missing?

We already know employers hardly ever divulge reasons(explain why) behind their hiring decisions. Trying to get an employer to openly explain why s/he rejected an applicant, in fact, is about as easy as trying to squeeze one of Obama’s proposals through Congress. But because we live and work in a share-obsessed society, we’re starting to get a picture of what’s behind all that covert hiring operation(diagram). And what we’ve discovered is surprisingly “expected.”

Employers Seek Out and React to Social Behavior

Thanks (or no thanks) to Facebook, Twitter, and {insert random social media site here}, hiring decisions can be influenced by an applicant’s social media activity. And according to several news reports, they’ve apparently been influenced by the social sphere as far back as 2008.

In a 2009 article, the New York Times reported “35 percent of employers decided not to offer a job to a candidate based on the content uncovered on a social networking site.” Provocative photos and references to drinking and drugs were two major influences, with poor online communication skills following close behind.

The idea behind hiring through a social media filter, as invasive as it may be, is to discover the actual personality that hovers over the perfected resume. For tons of job seekers, that’s not only a problem – it could contribute to why nearly 2 million 20- to 24-year-olds are unemployed now, and why they may face unemployment for a very long time.

Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d24b937a-a366-11e1-ab98-00144feabdc0.html#axzz200Lj8v39

Fast forward to today, where according to the Times of India, “91% of recruiters visited a potential employee’s online profile as part of the recruitment procedure and 69% rejected the applicants on the basis of the content found on their online profile.“ If you compare those figures to that in the New York Times article above, you’ll see the role of social media in the hiring process has increased by a tremendous margin over the last four years.

This social snooping shows no sign of slowing or stopping, and it’s on the rise so much, it’s extending beyond the user profile to profile followers, friends, and connections. A recent ABC News report, for example, demonstrates just how prevalent this trend has become with the “Social Job Interview,” where as part of the hiring process, companies such as Nike, Verizon, L’Oreal Paris and Nokia interview an applicant’s “friends” — on Facebook – from the Wall.

Sharing Comes with Consequences

To get an idea of what employers discover and react to, consider a Twitter page full of tweets like these:

Expletives hidden from view.

Read a couple dozen more tweets like those and it becomes painfully apparent why certain folks can’t even get a job shoveling dirt. Unfortunately, the people behind those tweets (and thousands more just like them) make up a significant part of our country’s workforce – a workforce that ironically whines about being unemployed:

Expletives hidden from view.

People need to understand that with hundreds of thousands of applicants vying for a single job position, employers will look for any reason to reject an application(show proof via electronically submitted resumes) just to save time. They additionally need to appreciate social media for the unrelenting open diary that it is, and use it as if it’s the resume before the resume.

In other words, the unemployed needs to know that prospective employers will look at their social behavior, and make a judgment call that could ultimately determine their ability to pay a car note, a phone bill, mortgage, a grocery bill, and/or an insurance payment. They especially need to know do-overs don’t exist on the Internet, and deleting the impressions projected in the screenshots above is next to impossible when things are syndicated, saved, printed and archived as soon as they’re published.

For some, this realization is much (much) too late. The tweets are too many, the updates are too long, and the profanity is simply overwhelming. What remains, however, is an opportunity to salvage the reputations of those who show promise once led in the right direction. So feel free to share this post with them. Tweet it, like it, plus it, link it, and email it.(link)

Surely, through a concerted effort, we can give our unemployed the tools they need to make an impression that’s just as valued and respected as that coming from an experienced (employed) generation.