Professionalism is paramount in the hospitality industry and can directly impact a brands reputation. Social media checks have provided employers with a very powerful method for validating candidate behavior.

Hospitality professionals are usually the first face to face interaction a consumer has with a brand. When we think of hospitality professionals, we often think of the front lines, but hospitality professionals also include those who oversee holiday events and corporate planning too.

Seasonal opportunities in hospitality can be your gateway to a long term full time opportunity.

So how are companies using social media to validate professionalism?

A social media check doesn’t provide a pass or fail, it flags behavior based on the criteria being evaluated.

  • The social media check scrapes social platforms and evaluates things you have liked, shared, favourited, tagged, have been tagged by others on, have commented on etc.
  • The social media check will flag things like criminal/illicit behavior, violence, hate speech, illicit drugs, terrorism and extremism, obscene language, threats and more.

This can have a direct correlation to how you are perceived professionally.

For example:

  • Your social media background check reveals that you posted a video at a past job using obscene language with a co-worker that you both thought was funny but was actually inappropriate and unprofessional.
  • Perhaps you passed through a phase in life where impassioned, you posted a lot of off the wall content or a particular issue, you and you may have even hit your Facebook groups opining.
  • You may have worked in an industry that would be likely to involve content that would get picked up on flags – perhaps you work in security and shared some video content of crimes taking place. Perhaps you reposted violent content or content involving crime that included something you found humorous, and you included an lol in your post content shared.

The reality is technology and social media have empowered employers, but as human beings we can’t always remember everything we have ever been interested in and/or engaged in.

Another consideration is cyber crime. Have you ever experienced one of your social media platforms being hacked? This can result in reems of comments all over social media, through your account that you may not even know are out there.

The only way to 100% ensure that your past social media activities don’t impact the professional perception of you on a social media check, is to get your own social media check and see what’s on there.

  • There may be flags that are innocent and where you can provide explanation, at the interview stage and before the employer reviews your social media check.
  • There may be things that come up that you weren’t aware of or that don’t reflect how you feel about topics today that you can correct.
  • A clean social media check is something you can highlight, substantiating why your behavior online is consistent with what you will present when representing the brand.

Be prepared to sell yourself. Know what your perspective employer will and increase your changes of getting hired through preparedness.

You can obtain your social media background check online at www.tritoncanada.ca.