For many Thais, they think what they do outside the office is their business. In their mind they believe, “As long as I go to work everyday and perform to expected standards, that’s all that matters”….but it isn’t. In using social media, they are sharing with the world information about their lifestyle and views. Two subjects that people should always stay away from are religion and politics as you will likely offend someone. For example, if there is an upcoming election, stay away from posting any support or criticism online as your co-workers or clients may support opposing candidates.
At Bangkok Executive Search, we believe you can learn a great deal about someone by the individuals they associate with online. In looking at someone’s Twitter account for instance, we can see who they “follow” and it’s amazing what we’ve been able to learn. For this reason, we place a significant amount of importance on researching every candidate online regardless of how impressive they may seem during a professional interview. In past searches, we have discovered candidates whose associations and interests caused us to immediately remove them from consideration as their views and lifestyle would poorly reflect on our clients.
Thai professionals need to understand that family members can also have a huge impact on their career. In fact, nobody is a stronger “reference” than a spouse or child in terms of gauging an employee’s character. Since children have literally grown up with technology, most Thai teenagers have a Facebook or Twitter account and sometimes an employer will look to see if they have any objectionable material posted. The belief is that a parent unaware of a “wild” child’s online activities should not be trusted to manage the affairs of a company.
We also look for pictures that Thai professionals post to their various social media profiles. If for example, someone is always pictured inside a bar then that is something that would be of great concern. One well known story is that of Ashley Payne, as American teacher who posted a photo of herself enjoying a few drinks at a pub while on vacation in Ireland. In the description under the photo, the teacher playfully used the term “bitch” and it was seen by a student at her school. Ultimately, school officials were contacted and this led to a meeting with Ms. Payne in which she felt she was offered two options: either resign or get fired.
Ms. Payne, who was not anticipating a meeting of this significance, informed the school administrators that she would resign. Even worse for Ms. Payne is the years of litigation that followed in an effort to salvage her career that unfortunately, may never recover.
The one lesson for Thai professionals and companies is that everyone has different standards of what they find to be “appropriate”. So although you may find nothing objectionable about a recent post or photo, someone else may see it as offensive. Remember, posts and photos are often viewable by more than just your friends and family. Additionally, even if you delete a controversial comment thinking it’s gone forever, don’t be surprised if you see it become viral as someone may have taken a screenshot of it. Trust us, we have seen many Thai professionals try to sabotage the career of someone they don’t like by forwarding an offensive comment to an employee’s company or boss.
Posted online comments or photos may cause jealousy as well which could have dire consequences. As an example, a manager at your company sees a picture of you with your family outside your home and wonders how you can afford such a nice house since he gets paid more. In other cases, we have seen people post pictures while they are away on vacation and once they return, they notice people acting differently towards them. The returning professional wonders, “What did I do, nobody wants to talk to me?” What they don’t know is that someone in the office may have brought to everyone’s attention the expensive vacation they were on and it may have come across as “showing off”. Plus, the next time a promotion comes up the company may not think you don’t deserve it since they already know you can afford an expensive vacation.
So what’s the answer? Well, many would argue that the best solution is to simply stay away from social media altogether as it only takes one person to create a problem for you. From our stand point, social media is absolutely necessary for a business yet personal accounts are a different story. In joining various sites like Facebook and Twitter, it may not be your content that creates problems for you, it maybe the photos or comments of someone you follow that becomes an issue. Therefore, why put your career in the hands of someone else, just say “no” to social media.
