Hiring From Social Media Free Zone

In a story filed by Kristina Wong (+Kristina Wong), of Washington Post, General Martin E. Dempsey, Joint Chief of Staff, told the youth yesterday, about giving them a “shot to start over.”  He was referring to the fact that the teens have been reckless in posting information about themselves on social media, and those posts would potentially shoot down their chances of joining the armed services.

With his advise, the General joined the ranks of scores of hiring managers in enterprises, both large and small, in using social media content to filter out prospective job applicants. General Dempsey, the article stated has been "voicing frustration" of  employers. Now some colleges are also following suit in rejecting applicants, should the prospective freshman tweet or post anything that may be deemed offensive!

Something (or someone) is out of tune in all this!

Social networks have opened up sharing in a big way and encourage it actively. User generated content acts, both like a honeypot and epoxy to grow and hold the network together. Society encourages this behavior. This is evident from swelling of social network’s audience and its widespread reach. The large market cap and huge valuation of these networks is a clear stamp of society’s approval.

Given this mark of confidence in social sharing, why do our hiring managers and enterprises hold social content posted by an individual for disqualification (assuming that the content is not illegal)?  Youngsters engage in behaviors grown-ups perceive as wild, outside the norm and disruptive.  Not much appears to have changed since 2010 when I wrote about this issue (Hiring in a social world: Rise of unequal Opportunity Employer). Employers have not devised norms to cover social media activities, and leave this completely to their subjective judgment.

Are the hiring practices that treat sharing as "overexposing", going out-of-date with this generational change while youth have moved ahead! That probably is the source of frustration.

Should companies, including Army, look for recruits who grew up and are in Facebook-Twitter-Snapchat-Pinterest-Instagram-Vine free zones? Or should they limit hiring from youth who shun sharing , no matter if they have the chops for the job or not.