Bruce Benidt
Jon Austin
tcarideo
Ellen Mrja
Mike Keliher
Joe LovelandHow far should we go in censoring ourselves? What we put up on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, all that jazz, lives forever and can make potential employers, maybe potential dates or friends, steer clear of us. If we worry too much about that, will we be misrepresenting ourselves as boring, vanilla people with no brains and no opinions? Shouldn’t potential employers realize they’re hiring human beings who have points of view?
Dave Phelps had a thought-provoking piece in the Sunday Star Tribune. It tells of some job candidates who lost jobs because of stuff they’d said online about other companies, about politics, about their own lives. “Before a job hunt, put a lid on tweets,” the headline reads.
One local placement specialist had a candidate lose a job because the potential employer didn’t like a negative political posting on the candidate’s Facebook page. Another headhunter said people put too much about their personal lives on their social-networking pages. “Divorce, sick parents, recovery programs,” the headhunter said, “if someone is having a big issue in life,” would an employer take a chance and hire that person?
Rose McKinney, president of Risdall McKinney Public Relations, told Phelps she didn’t give a job interview to a promising candidate because “on blog spaces and in Twitter conversations she was negative and critical of other agencies. I imagined what she would say about us and our clients.”
How hard should we bite our own tongues?
This is an issue the writers of this blog have thought about since our first post more than two years ago. Will potential clients not hire us, or existing clients fire our butts, if we say out loud what we really think about the senate recount or unallotment? I’ve written some things about out-of-control capitalism that I doubt the CEOs of my client companies would agree with. But I haven’t been fired so far — probably cuz nobody that important reads this stuff.
Strikes me that if companies are looking to hire people with no political opinions, no family or personal problems, and no critical views, they should recruit in Stepford or the cemetery. Sure, people shouldn’t be stupid, shouldn’t rail against Target or Medtronic if they hope to get a job there. But, especially in PR, shouldn’t we be looking to hire people with active brains, people who can write compelling stuff, people with critical faculties, people with some life experience? PR shops shouldn’t just look for perky clean-slate-brained bobbleheads — we’ve got too many of those now. Hire someone with grit, with gumption, with a little fire!
What do you folks think? How careful are you about what you put out on the web? How big an issue is this?
Years ago, when I worked at Mona Meyer McGrath & Gavin, I came into work one morning pretty pleased with myself because I had an op-ed printed in the Strib that morning about how pesky cell phones are. It was whimsical whining about not being able to get away from the damn things. On my computer was a note from my boss, mentor and dear friend Dennis McGrath. “See me.” He reminded me, rather forcefully, that we had a cell phone company as a client. He inquired if I was a natural-born idiot or if I’d acquired my idiocy on my own initiative. The client was rather irked, and Dennis had to do some backing and filling. I’m embarrassed to say I simply hadn’t thought of our roster of clients as I wrote. I did get a lot of “you go boy” responses from my own clients, who also felt cell phones were both a burden and a useful tool. Maybe that experience is part of why I don’t work at an agency anymore.
Those of you out there who hire — how spooked are you by signs of opinions and weird or troubled life experience in your candidates? How much should we all bite our tongues? Me, I can seldom bite my tongue because I can’t get past the foot I’ve stuck in my mouth.
– Bruce Benidt
(Image from Jeanette Chávez, film still from Autocensura, [Self Censorship], 2006)
Filed under: Communications, Free speech, Marketing, Media, Public relations
Bruce —
In a previous incarnation, I blogged about crisis communications, going so far as to call out the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in terms of statements and strategies.
When I was promoted to a regional job at Red Cross (Communication Director for a five-state region) I put the kibosh on it. Iced the whole thing.
Nobody told me to do it, it was never an issue with my boss or anyone else. I just did it because I knew I would be a in more high-profile position, and didn’t want someone to exact revenge upon my opinion by threatening to campaign against philanthropic donations.
It’s a matter of common sense, which is increasingly more un-common.
I’m not nearly as careful as many people would encourage me to be, but I’m a bit more careful than I care to be sometimes. But overall, I think it’s just a matter of not being a dunce. For example, if I had a client in the cell phone biz…
It’s a tough spot to be in if you’re desperate for a job, but I really believe that if you lose out on, say, a job opportunity in information technology because of, say, a political opinion expressed on a blog, you probably didn’t want to work for that person anyway.
This is classic liberal think: Because I own a megaphone, I can use it with impunity. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences of free speech.
Love the bit about Bruce, the cell phone and his boss. (How difficult is that transition from journalist/reporter/editorialist to public relations?) Can just about picture the scene. Nice one.
If you ask a professional communicator, “what should I say and how should I convey the information,” their first response should be “it depends…who is your most important audience?” Why? Because customized messaging is the bread-and-butter of effective communications.
The challenge with many social media options is that your audience is very broad and diverse, and one-size-fits all messaging is, as Bruce points out, usually 1) inappropriate or 2) least common denominator mush.
Face-to-face outreach, email, mail, niche publications, and other media are much more targetable, so you can match customize messages for audiences. Not so with social media. My email-based liberal rant to a dozen liberal friends is no problem. But my rant to a few hundred strangers on a blog or Facebook is much more perilous and less effective, because I’ve lost the ability to temper and customize messaging to fit a specific target audience…a staple of smart communications practices.
So, while social media is surely new, shiny and fun, the inability to narrow your audience severely limits its effectiveness as a PR tool.
And another thing… PR people promoting their product, cause or service via social media is about as welcome and effective as having a friend hold an uninvited Tupperware demonstration at your dinner party. Argh. When I’m on Facebook, I’m looking for self-destructive personal comments and photos, not more sales pitches. As PR and marketing pitches proliferate on social media outlets, the venue becomes much less interesting to me.
Very interesting topic. Personally, I am concerned that so many people, friends included, don’t think about the photos they post on Facebook. I particularly hate when they tag a photo of me – as I don’t want them influencing my online “brand.”
To me, social media is a like a visible tattoo. I was driving with my dad the other day when we saw a guy walking down the street with tattoos on his neck and face. My dad said, “how’s that guy ever going to get a decent job?” Tattoos, like a Facebook page, help you express yourself, but are also permanent and send an instant impression you can’t control. You also might regret them down the road.
Personally, I’d rather have a bland online presence than one I’m embarrased by. I guess that’s why I don’t have any ink either.
I once had a business development guy in my company ask me not to talk about religion and politics — two of my favorite ranting topics. However, he never developed any business, so what did he know?
Seriously, I didn’t muzzle myself much, but as the head of a firm, I kept my public words and affiliations tempered because expressing myself could have an impact on my employees, including those who didn’t necessarily share my views. (In Bruce’s example, those working on the cell phone account.)
Being a professional means you can have your own opinions, but when they affect your practice, you’d better be a sole proprietor,
Charlie: Or an opinion-sharing sole proprietor who risks pissing of clients.
Oh, this is a tough one. A former priest friend of mine said I’m on this planet to speak the truth. And sometimes it’s difficult. When I don’t speak up, a piece of me goes away. I guess it’s in the “how” where the skills needed. These days, I find myself starting many sentences with “I hear what you’re saying, but that has not been my experience” …and then I go into my thing. But this approach doesn’t lend itself to pithy prose.
Sez you.
Re: Charlie’s “,,,but when they affect your practice, you’d better be a sole proprietor”
Agree, but and would add the words “childless” and “financially comfortable” in front of “sole proprietor.” Most sole proprietors lacking employees still have mouths to feed beyond their own.
I think everyone needs to be careful what they say online, but if you lose out on a job because you discussed politics or ranted about a poor customer service experience, you probably didn’t want to work for the company anyway. I’m pretty open online, I’d rather be myself then be someone I’m not. If someone doesn’t like how I act online they probably won’t like how I act in the workplace.
Employers seem to value things shared on social media platforms higher than they should. I understand being unwilling to higher someone who posts revealing/drunken/dangerous photos online, or names and then talks about their employer. On the other hand avoiding hiring someone with religious or political writings online is crazy. If someone doesn’t have views on these subjects they probably don’t have a pulse.
Right on.
This may be fair and maybe it isn’t but, it is reality. I see more and more companies including this in background checks. Being cautious is the best way to handle it. If you wouldn’t want your mother to see it, a prospective employer may be offended too.
[...] 2009-07-17T15:15:19 I Tweet, Therefore I’m Unemployable – interesting article about how what u say online can get u in trouble in ur career [link to post] [...]
Here is a great, real time, real world example of this phenomena:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/aide-resigns-over-facebook-posts-on-harvard-arrest/?hp
What really strikes me is that although the person in question IS involved in politics, and the problem is that she expressed political views, it still seems to me that she really wasn’t connected with the issues at hand (the Gates arrest in Boston) professionally. I mean, she was an aide to a New York City politician!
I’ll have to read that again but isn’t there an overt expression of rather profound racial bias that really should excuse this person from public life? Okay, if she keeps it in the closet?