Putting careers at risk through careless online posts
Nearly a third (31 percent) of working Australian 18-25 year olds are ‘Facebook friends’ with their boss, AVG Technologies’ latest Digital Diaries study reveals. The study also found that the majority of respondents (54 percent) admitted they had never audited their online profile or cleaned-up potentially career damaging content. Digital Baggage, the sixth instalment of AVG’s Digital Diaries study, features responses from 4,400 18-25 year olds in 11 countries to AVG’s questions as to how they manage their social network profiles.
AVG’s research also finds that 62 percent of Australian young adults who are ‘Facebook friends’ with their colleagues do not restrict the content co-workers are able to access. Yet, nearly half (47 percent) did wish they could remove inappropriate photos of themselves online.
The survey highlights how this age group is likely to share personal content in an open forum that includes work colleagues, which could have long-term impact on their future career prospects. Specifically, 13 percent of Australian respondents did admit to posting abusive content online about their boss or company after a bad day at work.
Italy’s young employees were the most likely to vent their anger (18 percent), compared to their French and New Zealand equivalents (10 percent), who were least likely to express their emotions digitally.
Michael McKinnon, AVG Technologies AU Security Advisor, said: “AVG’s latest research clearly shows young people today have a comfort with using online social networks that is leading to blurring between their professional and private lives. It seems obvious that posting abusive content about a boss or workplace is not very sensible, but it’s important to understand that not only could it damage a person’s existing career, it could also negatively impact on future opportunities too. Our research findings indicate that today’s 18- 25 year old ‘digital natives’ need to be more aware of their ‘online brand’ as something employers and recruiters are increasingly investigating.”
Other key findings include:
No social networks allowed: in Australia and the USA, 58 percent of survey recipients admitted to accessing social networks that were banned at work from mobile phones. This was also the case in a number of other countries: the UK and Italy (57 percent); Japan (49 percent); Germany, France and Spain (all 46 percent).
Unrestricted profiles for co-workers: 38 percent of Australian workers do not restrict their Facebook profile for work colleagues,but this is actually a lower percentage whencompared to their counterparts in the US (59 percent); Italy (58 percent); Spain (54 percent); Germany (51 percent); France (50 percent); Canada (45 percent), while New Zealand and the UK (33 per cent); Czech Republic (30 per cent); and Japan (27 per cent) are lower still.
Sub-editingsocial profiles: young people in Australia and Britain (47 percent) are more likely to have audited their online profiles than their equivalents in Spain (20 percent); France (40 percent); Germany and US (42 percent); Japan (43 percent); Canada (46 percent) with New Zealand slightly higher (48 percent).
Unsuitable pictures: the Spanish (80 percent) are most likely to have inappropriate images posted online, compared with young people in the Czech Republic (32 percent); Italy (29 percent); Australia and Germany (28 percent); Canada (27 percent); New Zealand (26 percent); UK (25 percent); and US (21 percent).
Interview techniques:one in twelve (9 percent) Australian young adults had been in an interview where things they posted online were mentioned,compared with Italy (15 percent); USA (13 percent); Spain (10 percent); Canada, Germany and France (7 percent); Japan and UK (6 percent); Czech Republic and New Zealand (5 percent)