Live data from Hacker News

Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

mobile.nytimes.com

91–100 of 281 posts

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#91

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

> I've never been worried about my employer seeing my social media profiles. If I wouldn't do something in public, I wouldn't post it to social media. Maybe I'm unique in being able to restrain myself.

Me either, but maybe there's a chilling effect going on here.

EDIT:

> I always hear stories about how people are "so much happier" after they quit Facebook. What is happening on your Facebook that's making you unhappy?

I personally believe this is because it's orders of magnitude easier to be negative than positive. Negativity breeds more negativity and drama. So, when people quit Facebook they get a boost from not being around so much negativity.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#92
post #11

as a millennial its almost impossible to apply for a job that doesnt quietly scan through social media trying to find you. My last job sent a linkedin request from the HR director, but after my first week he lamented that I "didnt seem very social" on the internet. My current job went so far as to browse the TLD for my email address for clues to any seditious or non-conforming behaviors.

I have not had this experience. Please post the field you are in.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#93
post #90
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's OK to the check Facebook profiles and look for stupidly shared information around drugs or something like this. I wouldn't want to hire a specialist who is publicly promoting drug usage. On the other hand if you Google me you find something related to me liking ganja. Which imo helps future bosses to filter me if they aren't OK with that.

Meanwhile, SV enterpreneurs take daily microdoses of LSD.

[deleted]

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#94

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

What is happening on your Facebook that's making you unhappy?

Not me because I haven't been on social media for years but I'm guessing it's comparison. If your friends are posting photos of their holiday in Bali and you only managed a camping trip over the weekend then how is that going to make you feel? Add in the doom and gloom in the news that tells you things have never been so bad and you can see it isn't healthy.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#95

how about quit all news media including the New York Times? NYT = same exact incentives as Facebook. plus constant exaggeration of threats and pushing irrelevant stuff outside of your control. i honestly don't give a fuck what Kim Jong Un / Putin / Trump do because i can't change anything about them. which makes the NYT an addictive waste of time very much like social media.

Ive moved on for the most part.

I check reddit and ycombinator.

Instagram was good, but its a lot of repeats after you spend enough time on it.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#96
nice article, but the concept of a career that is too much based on self-promotion and too little on actual production is not a concept invented by social media. It's fine to say, "hey don't waste all your time on twitter" but this seems to address people who specifically are pursuing their social media persona as a means to career advancement. It depends on the career.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#97
post #74

> If you’re serious about making an impact in the world, power down your smartphone, close your browser tabs, roll up your sleeves and get to work. I found this pretty pretentious.

>When you are a programmer and your work requires your smart phone to be on

Couldnt get node.js to work with my emulator...

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#98
post #20

Career and social life should be completely and utterly separated. The content on your social media page should have no bearing on your ability to perform the job at hand. Quite honestly, an employer that even looks at your social media profile to do a sort of casual "character check" on you, is not one that you should want to work for in the first place. Especially true in the realm of IT, where there just simply ar…

As an anecdote, I did quite thorough background checks on candidates before I hired them, more thorough than what they expected or suspected. I get occasional texts from two former employees thanking me for the great role I gave them and the great work environment. They were happy to have the job that I had to offer, and no I had no shortage of candidates for it.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#99
post #69

Am I the only person that has a healthy relationship with social media? I use Twitter to follow interesting celebrities and industry professionals. (Adam Savage Mythbusters fame, pro climber Alex Honnold, several notable iOS programmers). I rarely interact with any of them, but I find out about lots of interesting things. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends around the country. I can keep my dad updated to wh…

For most people there exists a news headline that will ruin their day or at least disrupt their morning e.g "Young child decapitated at amusement park" or "North Korea moves one step closer to nuking Western US" or "Bacon Gives You Cancer". Facebook heavily encourages people to write and share headlines like this (true or not) and then promotes them prominently in your news feed. This can take a heavy emotional toll…

Funny, I probably saw all three headlines you mentioned, here on NH. I just don’t click on ones likely to upset me.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It (2016)

#100
post #41
post #20

Career and social life should be completely and utterly separated. The content on your social media page should have no bearing on your ability to perform the job at hand. Quite honestly, an employer that even looks at your social media profile to do a sort of casual "character check" on you, is not one that you should want to work for in the first place. Especially true in the realm of IT, where there just simply ar…

> an employer that even looks at your social media profile to do a sort of casual "character check" on you, is not one that you should want to work for in the first place. Companies aren't going to ignore "free information available at your fingertips" about the candidates they hire. For example a problem candidate may have easily accessible "red flags" on their social media such as racist stuff and drug use. They co…

Nobody cares if your SQL is written by nazis as long as nobody knows they're nazis. Nobody cares if your sales guys are alcoholics as long as they bring in busines and don't embarrass the company. By intentionally filtering on irreverent criteria (like the politics and drug habits of back-end devs) you're needlessly shrinking the talent pool.

The time the average hire spends with the company is short enough that having to fire the occasional qualified employee early over "culture fit" really isn't a big deal.

Post reply on HN