Employment social media screening

[Wholovesorangesoda]

Could anyone help with what this entails please?
I have gone for a job and I think my chances of getting it are high. They've said they will do a social media screen if I get the role. My friend says that if I give permission for the screen they will be able to see all of my private messages etc. Whilst I have nothing to hide, I'm sure this can't be right?! I understand they probably want to check my profiles on various platforms to ensure I'm not some racist person who bitches about their current role but im not sure searching my personal messages to friends about private matters is going to be up for screening?! Someone please tell me she's wrong?? Thanks

Unless you give them your passwords they won’t be able to access it! Not even the police are able to do that 🙈 so don’t give your passwords as you have the right to privacy under the human rights act.

Why on earth do you believe your friend? I hope being particularly credulous doesn't disqualify you from the job! They will do a normal search to look at your public social media profiles.

You won’t be giving them access to your private Facebook messages, don’t worry.

What they will want to see your profile and ‘wall’ as your Facebook ‘friends’ can it, they will want to see what you are posing for others to see, they don’t care about private conversations just what you are putting out there’s publicly and if you are sharing opinions or anything that could negatively affect the company if they were to hire you.

I didn't believe it particularly as it would be an invasion on human rights but she was insistent that you could. She works there too which made me think she may be right

Sandshake i particukarly appreciate your patronising tone so thank you for that. Everyone else, thank you for your reassurance, it's what I thought - no access without passwords, but as I said that she works there it did make me wonder if she knew something they can do that I didn't!

Really? You're cross at me being a bit patronising instead of your friend for winding you up and yourself for believing it?! Unless it's GCHQ of course.

Set your social media to high privacy settings if you are worried.

It's already high privacy so that should be good! I've viewed it on the public setting and am happy with what can be seen. I don't really have anything on my normal one that would be incriminating anyway, it was just that I googled and there were articles saying if you view things during work hours then technically your boss can read your private messages, I assume because your details are on their servers somehow? I'm not very techy so I'm not sure the ins and outs but it was certainly them being read without passwords being given. I just wasn't sure if they had the technology to do that if you weren't logging in on their servers, and by agreeing to the search you were giving permission for them to do this.
I'm not 'cross' at anyone, i just asked a question and felt that they way you answered was unnecessary, that's all, but thank you for your input

OP companies are going to be very aware of the increased stringency brought about by the forthcoming GDPR (Global Data Protection Regulation) due to be in force in May 2018 and will tread very carefully about how they use social media to inform recruitment decisions.

Sounds like you are a careful person who uses social media responsibility so you have nothing to worry about. If anything, benign posts on social media could give them a good impression of you as a total person not just the corporate image given at interview.

It's only those who are foolharding enough to show embarrassing pictures of themselves drunk on the beach in Magalouf or brag about being "on a sickie" who need to clean things up for prospective employers.

Responsibly