How To Lose Your Job with Twitter

We all know how important social networking can be in finding a job and increasing our professional networks, but careless posting on sites like Twitter can also be a great way to lose your job. Changing you privacy settings and making sure that your boss isn't one of your Twitter followers isn't enough to protect you from having them read your tweets. All it takes is for one of your friends or coworkers (who is friends with your boss) to re-tweet your post. Don't let this happen to you. No matter how mad you are, don't post it on the internet.

 

Just to see how prevalent this bad habit it, I went to Twitter and searched for posts that include the words “my boss”. Here are a few gems I found. I wonder what their boss had to say when they saw theses.

 

 

 

By now, everyone should know that nothing you post on a social networking site is private. No matter how many horror stories we hear, there are still people who don't seem to understand that just because you can flame your boss on the internet, doesn't mean you should. Not only can it cost you your job, give you unending amounts of embarrassment it can also ruin your chances at another job. See, the tricky thing about the internet is that even if you delete the account and do everything you can to make the embarrassing post go away, Google will still keep it alive in the archives. None of us are naïve enough to think that a new employer isn't going to Google us before an interview. If your flame post was bad enough to cause you problems, odds are good that someone will have blogged about it, and now the whole story is available for anyone who wants to read it.

 

I'm sure many of you have heard about "Cisco Fatty" who recently applied for, and was offered a job by Cisco got in some trouble when they posted this on Twitter

 

Little did the lucky job applicant realize, people who work for Cisco know how to use the internet, and they received this reply

 

These stories go on and on. There was one story about a sales rep who flew to Memphis to pitch a new campaign to FedEx at their headquarters and tweeted about how much they hate the town and the company. The people at the FedEx headquarters weren't amused and complained both to the sales rep and to the parent company.

 

Don't let this happen to you. Social Networking is a place to stay connected with friends and business associates, not a place to air your dirty laundry. Use Twitter to help build a professional network and find a job, not to destroy your professional credibility and lose your job.

 

 

 

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a freelance writer and regular contributor to several websites and other publications, a volunteer, a full time mom and an active job seeker.