Putting careers at risk through careless online posts<\/p>\n
Nearly a third (31 percent) of working Australian 18-25 year olds are \u2018Facebook friends\u2019 with their boss, AVG Technologies<\/a>\u2019 latest Digital Diaries<\/a> 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<\/em>, the sixth instalment of AVG\u2019s Digital Diaries study, features responses from 4,400 18-25 year olds in 11 countries to AVG\u2019s questions as to how they manage their social network profiles.<\/p>\n AVG\u2019s research also finds that 62 percent of Australian young adults who are \u2018Facebook friends\u2019 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 Specifically, 13 percent of Australian respondents did admit to posting abusive content online about their boss or company after a bad day at work.<\/p>\n Italy\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Michael McKinnon, AVG Technologies AU Security Advisor, said: \u201cAVG\u2019s 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\u2019s important to understand that not only could it damage a person\u2019s existing career, it could also negatively impact on future opportunities too. Our research findings indicate that today\u2019s 18- 25 year old \u2018digital natives\u2019 need to be more aware of their \u2018online brand\u2019 as something employers and recruiters are increasingly investigating.\u201d<\/p>\n Other key findings include:<\/strong><\/p>\n No social networks allowed<\/strong>: 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: \u00a0the UK and Italy (57 percent); Japan (49 percent); Germany, France and Spain (all 46 percent).<\/p>\n Unrestricted profiles for co-workers<\/strong>: 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.<\/p>\n Sub-editingsocial profiles<\/strong>: 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).<\/p>\n Unsuitable pictures<\/strong>: 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).<\/p>\n Interview techniques<\/strong>: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\u00a0 (13 percent); \u00a0Spain (10 percent); \u00a0Canada, Germany and France (7 percent); Japan and UK (6 percent); Czech Republic and New Zealand (5 percent)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Putting careers at risk through careless online posts Nearly a third (31 percent) of working Australian 18-25 year olds are \u2018Facebook friends\u2019 with their boss, AVG Technologies\u2019 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<\/p>\n