By now everyone knows, or should know, that you need to be
careful about what you share online. Candidates aren’t even considered for jobs because a potential employer is put off by their social media presence. Tasteless remarks can even get you fired.
Yet, just yesterday I read about
a photo of a Burger King employee with his feet in the restaurant’s lettuce bins which was posted online with the caption “This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King.” To add stupidity to injury the employees left the “geo-location tags” on the post which allowed people who saw the picture to identify the Burger King location where the photo was taken. People started calling the restaurant, the local newspapers were alerted and, after an investigation, the three employees involved were fired. By the time I saw the story the article was being featured on MSNBC.com
Now these former Burger King employees may think the prank was worth it. Maybe they hated working there and were happy to be let go. But they may care when it comes to looking for their next job. What will future employers think? Fair or not, they’ll probably not think much of a candidate who was fired from Burger King. If they find out why the employee was fired, they’ll think even less of them. Either way they probably won’t get the job.
