Six years ago, when I first made my Facebook account, I posted the most embarrassing of things on there. It became my scapegoat to complain about my parents, whine about school, and just blab about my life to anyone who came across my page. I thought I was the coolest person alive for having this social media tool at the tip of my fingers. Eventually, I grew up and so did my page. I posted more and more general statements and pictures of my friends and I doing God knows what. A lot of things on my Facebook are just flat out embarrassing. In no way, shape, or form do they represent the person I am. Facebook is just kind of there; it’s a place to joke around with friends I can’t see everyday and to go all nostalgic on quality memories.
If an employer asked me for my Facebook password, I would be completely appalled. I think that it’s an extremely inappropriate thing for anyone to do, especially a potential place of work. Who you are in person, and your qualifications, should be enough for employers rather than them having to dig up dirt against you. With texting being such a prominent form of communication for young adults nowadays, misreading messages is fairly common. There’s also miscommunication in emails, tweets, and any other form of contact that isn’t face to face. Someone reading my Facebook out of context or not understanding the point I tried to make, could do a complete one-eighty on their opinion of me. It’s hard to explain inside jokes to someone. If they have the right to look at my page to see what kind of person I am, do I get the right to look at theirs to see what kind of person is hiring me? I think that’s only fair. Don’t mix business with pleasure, right? Facebook could be considered a pleasure of mine, and the business side of me should be kept completely separate from that.
A employer could “creep” on me all the way back to when I was in seventh grade. They could judge me on a racist comment I may have or may not have made, or a suggestive picture implying something their company doesn’t support. To be honest, not even I know what I have on there. I think how I present myself to the employer is all they should base their hiring process on. They should not have the right to check into my personal life like that. It’s an invasion of privacy and no one gets the chance to say no to it. No one wants to tell their employers no.