Job Performance and Its Link to Facebook

Most people who are finding employment believed that what they post on Facebook could actually ruin their chances of getting the position they have applied for or finding a job in the first place. People feel this way because Facebook is a social media website in which people can post all types of embarrassing photos and can also be tagged in embarrassing photographs from other people’s Facebook pages. And, while what is posted on Facebook can, in fact, ruin a potential employees shot at getting the job they were hoping for, a Facebook profile can also predict whether or not an employee will be successful on the job.

There is a new study, which will be released shortly, which shows that reviewing a Facebook page for about ten minutes can easily help employers figure out whether or not a potential candidate for the position is worth becoming an employee. Things that are viewed on the Facebook page actually tell a lot about who the person is and what their personality is like, along with their character.

One of the researchers for this study, Donald Kluemper, says that companies regularly use personality tests when it comes to weeding out the bad seeds of job applicants. In recent years, many of these companies began relying heavily on what was posted on potential job candidates social networking pages as a means of getting to know them better and knowing who they truly are. Kluemper says he and other researchers decide to figure out how reliable this source of finding out information from social networking pages would be.

Kluemper says that those who hire the employees typically check out the pages to see if the individual is involved in anything that is inappropriate or even illegal. However, it is possible to figure out much more from these pages, including what the personality of the particular individual is like.

Upon reviewing the Facebook pages, there were certain things that were reviewed to determine whether or not the potential candidate would make a good employee. This included the individual’s ability to get along with other people, trust other people, and show creativity. Intellectual curiosity could be determined by the types of books the individual’s like to read, along with their favorite quotes, and the type of activities they participate in.

The thing about being able to determine an individual’s personality from a Facebook page is that unlike on a personality test, what the person posts up on their Facebook page about who they are and what they like is typically not faked, whereas during a personality test, the person could easily fill out specific answers that sound like what the employer would want to hear so that they can get the job.