Facebook and employers/school

[daisybird27]

So I was wondering if you delete your Facebook can employers or schools still be able to see it? I know they have their own system. Is it ok to have a personal Facebook while in nursing school or is that unprofessional ?

thanks !!

[Sagegrr]

If I was an employer trying to decide between two evenly matched candidates and one was posting pictures of them drinking or partying constantly, I might chose the other.

[ixchel]

Because it's my Instagram and I can do what I want with it

You will always be faced with choices and freedoms, such as doing whatever you want with your instagram. Conversely, you must recognize that every single action good or bad has a consequence. You are intelligent enough to recognize that, or else you would not have started this thread.

I never did get into instagram, but I do have facebook. I post frequently, and sometimes what I post is off-color or offensive. I make sure to state that clearly up front when it's a video or article.

What you'll never see me post is me being reckless, engaging in risky behaviors, partying, or nudity, being in any way hateful, giving medical advice (but I do love to share evidence based stuff, or ethics stuff to discuss), sharing patient info, or anything related to these things.

Essentially... I am willing to accept consequences or awkward sit-downs with my boss for having an actual personality.

I'm not willing to put my job or license on the line by posting anything that would suggest I engage in risky behavior or would encourage others to do the same. I will also never go above my pay grade in writing on social media because that will lose a license pretty quickly as well.

Arm yourself with knowledge. Search here and through the news to find what kinds of social media habits do get people in trouble. Make an informed decision regarding what consequences you are willing to accept. Between now and the end of your first year working, I personally suggest posting like you are in love with cute puppy and baby videos. That offends no one, and wont kill your shots at having a job.

[ixchel]

"First off, I do not go creeping facebook or anything else looking to bust people for stuff. In fact, I wish the lot of you on those sites would grow up and stop incriminating yourselves. Second, I don't have to go fishing for garbage on my own time or pay someone to do it. All your coworkers will do it free of charge, on their personal time. And those are the ones who say they like you."

This is absolutely the horrible truth.

Had a friend work an understaffed shift on a night when her whole unit blew the eff up. Most of us have had shifts that didn't feel safe. She had one, and she mentioned it on Facebook. One of her "friends" went to management instead of saying something to her about it being inappropriate. She nearly lost her job over it.

[sammiesmom]

If you don't like what other people says here, beware. Some of the HR out there may think like these people. Oh yes, they are judging you! I delete posts on facebook and facebook have made it to where when original posts are shared, it is deleted as well. You can also set your privacy setting to where only friends can see original posting when shared. Just change the pic settings to ONLY ME. I do this when I like posts but do not want to spam the news feed (recipes, projects, DIY stuff).

[cowgrrl7]

My facebook is set so that anyone who tags me in anything has to be approved by me before it shows up on my page. I have denied things before that I thought was not appropriate. I also have my page set pretty tight so hopefully only friends can see what I post. I think before I post anything to make sure that it is appropriate because I do have many co-workers as friends. I never post anything about work anyway so I know I'm not violating HIPPAA.

[andrea4_2005]

When I was in nursing school 10 years ago, we had been taught don't post anything you don't want others to see. Keep in mind potential employers can and will see this, if you are fine with them seeing you drinking so be it. Everyone is different in how they want to represent themselves.

[pluckyduck, MSN, NP]

Anything on the internet is forever, don't forget it. Be mindful of everything you post, or it will come back to bite you.

[Skeptic-]

Everything you've ever put online is out there, forever. Deleting it won't make any difference at this point.

This is a theoretically possible but misleading urban legend I hear from people that don't understand the internet all the time. Everything that has been posted has the potential to be there forever, but it is far from a guarantee. Someone has to be saving the data for it to be there, and not everything gets saved all the time.

For example an anecdote. Back when I first started working at a hospital, in the myspace era. I had pictures on there of me hitting a bong in Amsterdam at the youth hostile I stayed at. When I got hired on I set my profile to be private, then with maturity came deletion of the picture online, and eventually rid of the myspace account all together. That picture is not there anymore, it cannot be found on the internet, anywhere. If I tried my hardest to find it, reactivated the account if I still could, etc, I could not. This all assumes that some random person did not manually save my picture which is possible, but very unlikely. None of us are that special, and short of being a celebrity or a photo that is worth keeping, it's not much to worry about.

All that being said, the internet then and now are different things, especially in the social media setting. As you see, I'm using an anonymous handle here with no identifiable way to trace it to me, which is in my opinion, what people should be doing if they want to speak their mind without working about uncle work peeking in if they wanted to.

Sorry people saying that "it's there forever!" has always been a pet peeve of mine.

[Serhilda, ADN, RN]

Employers absolutely will make wrongful judgments about us based off of social media. The existence of that does not simultaneously justify it. Simply because we can be fired for doing something perfectly legal, like drinking, does not make it right. Addressing the ridiculousness of firing employees, especially female employees from what I've seen, for what they consider inappropriate is something we as a culture need to focus on. Of course though, in the meantime, stay safe, keep your profile private, and don't add friends from work to facebook. My 2 cents.

[CelticGoddess, BSN, RN]

Because it's my Instagram and I can do what I want with it

You're right, you can do with it what you want. But keep this in mind: Any potential or actual employer can use that instragram against you. Last year a local school teacher was fired from her public school job after a picture of her drunk appeared on instagram and it was shared. Never assume that you are safe if you delete. The internet is forever!

[ArtClassRN, ADN, RN]

Also with Instagram , is it bad to have pictures of you drinking ?

Depends. Are you having a glass of wine or are you doing a kegstand?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Simply because we can be fired for doing something perfectly legal, like drinking, does not make it right.

Unfortunately, certain categories of job applicants are not protected by E.O.E. rules. Therefore, social drinkers, smokers and the overweight/obese can be legally discriminated against when seeking employment.

I agree with you that this is not right. However, it is what it is. In the meantime, people would be wise to minimize or remove those drinking and smoking pictures from the social media footprint if they worry about future employers' negative perceptions.