According to a recent study, 45 percent of employers currently use social network Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or Twitter to screen job candidates, more than double the number only one year earlier.1 Approximately 35 percent of employers decided not to offer a job to a candidate as a result of information gleaned from a social network site. More than 50 percent of the employers surveyed indicated that provocative photos were the largest contributing factor to a decision not to make a job offer to a candidate, while 44 percent of employers were disturbed by candidates’ references to the use of drugs or alcohol.
In addition to using social network Web sites in conducting background checks on prospective employees, employers increasingly are monitoring current employees’ use of online social network Web sites, and numerous employers have discharged employees because of content posted on such sites. For example, in May 2007, the Olive Garden restaurant discharged a supervisor “after she posted photos on MySpace of herself, her [underage] daughter, and other restaurant employees hoisting empty beer bottles.”2
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