Workplace 101: A Profiles Global Business Blog

For many software developers and engineers, the dream differs from reality. The dream: graduate from college and create an innovative startup. The reality: an increasingly competitive environment, where many ideas fail to take off, leaving financial disarray and shattered confidence. Enter the phenomenon of acqui-hiring – the practice of large companies spending millions to buy startups for talent acquisition, typically engineers or developers. The startup’s products are usually dropped in the deal because the primary goal in acqui-hiring is to obtain human talent.

Why bother getting fired over Facebook when you can lose your job on Twitter in 140 characters or less? Twitter can streamline your humiliation and cost you your job in record time. Just ask Gene Morphis, former chief financial officer of fashion retailer Francesca's Holdings Corp. He was fired on Monday after he “improperly communicated company information through social media.”

It seems that Facebook can’t go a week without making headline news. The social media mogul has now bought Instagram for $1 billion. Mark Zuckerberg posted on his Facebook feed, “I'm excited to share the news that we've agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.”

The social network was only a short time in existence before organizations began screening job applicant’s profile pages pre-hire. It is common knowledge that the majority of employers today will visit your profile page before deciding whether or not to hire you.

A Microsoft Research study conducted last year showed how 70% of recruiters said they’d rejected applicants based on the information they found online. Furthermore, in a new survey commissioned by Reppler, 91% of companies are using social networks for screening.

Researched and Edited by Jeff Meyers

Social media is at the center of 2 big headlines in the business press in early February. The first is the much-anticipated IPO filing by Facebook. The second is the announcement that Procter and Gamble (P&G) is laying off 1,600 marketers as a result of slashing its advertising budget. These two stories have a tremendous impact for all employers: embrace social media for your business or risk fading away.