Beware- hiring practices within many modern organisations today are placing greater emphasis on the social networking presence of candidates.
This tactic may be used to uncover potential indiscretions, or an attempt to assess the true ‘value’ of the candidate.
The social network, as we know it today, is mapped through technology and the advent of social media websites, affording us the luxury to maintain our social ties that go beyond our ability to simply remember our personal links.
Subsequently, the theory known as “six degrees of separation” that was a popular term to describe the work of Stanley Milgram, examining the average path length for social networks, needs to be dramatically reduced to account for the advances in technology.
However, the fundamental differences in our social ties today, are the very nature of these links themselves.
Previously, communities and relationships were largely based on the fact that you lived close to someone, effectively in physical proximity.
Technology now allows us to build interpersonal relationships with people around the world, beyond our immediate physical proximity, thus naturally attracting those with similar interests.
Subsequently, our own social networks are now closer to us in terms of age, interests, and background, than they are likely to be in terms of physical proximity. Obviously exceptions will exist, but consider how many of us have built close relationships with people we have physically never met?
Although we may know our immediate next-door neighbour, how well we know them? And do we know the person that lives three or even two doors from us? It’s unlikely.
Undoubtedly, this point can be debated – but the area that has fundamentally changed is this concept of reputation, whether that is personal or corporate.
In today’s modern social network, the concept of reputation does provide a degree of quantification, for example Twitter followers, Facebook “likes”, LinkedIn endorsements, and so on.
Thus recruiters will continue to reply on social media to find and then discard potential employees. As such what you post- and your online acquaintances post about you- can have a significant effect on your financial well being. You can run- but you can’t hide.