12 Most Spectacular Job Losses due to Social Media Stupidity

• Buffer
• Tweet
• Email

• Buffer
• Tweet
• Email

A Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey reported that 92% of companies planned to use social media in their employee search, which means you can bet that what you put online will eventually be put “on file” when you’re applying for a job or after you get it. Social media provides you an excellent opportunity to showcase your professionalism, smarts and maturity while online, which can set you apart from the competition. Right?

Maybe not. It seems the allure of making a fool of yourself through social channels is greater than the need to acquire and/or retain a job. Case(s) in point: here are 12 most spectacular job losses due to social media stupidity.

1. The weiner

New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, tweeted a lewd photo of himself to a young college student in Seattle, which he later tried to justify by saying it was supposed to be in a private DM and not a public tweet. All together now: “what a wiener”.

1. The Chrysler F-Series

An official @ChryslerAutos Twitter admin dropped the F-bomb on its more than 7,500 followers. Tweet: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f**king drive”. Wonder if Scott Monty at Ford needs new social media staff?

3. Premature tweeting

Connor Riley was offered a prime job at Cisco but was torn about the commute. So naturally she tweeted about it. “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating work.” Guess who didn’t get the job?

4. Oops, did I say that out loud?

David Noordewier, (former) employee of Walmart, posted that the country’s average IQ would increase if bombs were dropped on all the company’s stores. I guess he’ll be joining all his friends shopping at Walmart now.

5. The quack heard around the world

Gilbert Gottfried made jokes about the Japanese tsunami while employed as voice of the Aflac duck. “Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach. The Beach comes to them.” This tool then took his act back to the social airwaves in a campaign to find a new spokes-duck. Should have been lame-duck.

6. I’m ready for my close up, Mr. Gumbel

A NBC staffer was fired for posting a video of Today Show anchor Bryant Gumbel demonstrating his incredible lack of knowledge about the Internet. I wouldn’t have hired this guy but offered a bonus for alerting management of the lack of “media” qualifications their on-air personalities have.

7. Backing the wrong horse

CNN’s Senior Middle East editor Octavia Nasr tweeted about her respect for Lebanon’s Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah after his death. Problem was that he was linked to bombings that killed hundreds of Americans. I think she may be on permanent vacation in Lebanon now.

8. A dumbass by any other tweet… is still a dumbass

Veteran war correspondent Nir Rosen tweeted his thoughts in the wake of the news that CBS foreign correspondent Lara Logan suffered a sexual assault. The dumbass tweeted: “I’m rolling my eyes at all the attention she’ll get” & “it would have been funny if it happened to Anderson too”.

9. The 6-toppings pizza special

Staff at a Dominos Pizza franchise posted the now-infamous video of themselves doing gross things to a pizza on YouTube, which was apparently served to customers. Clearly the IQ requirements of Domino’s Pizza staff is incredibly low. Maybe they’re the Walmart shoppers the guy in #3 was talking about?

10. Rule: never friend your boss on Facebook

An employee of Nationale Suisse called in sick one day claiming her work computer would aggravate the migraine she was suffering from. Of course, she was later “seen” posting messages to a friend’s Facebook page. A termination notice was added to her Facebook’s wall…so her migraine wouldn’t be affected by reading it at work.

11. Crowdsourced dismissal

Pro Bowl running back Larry Johnson sent a series of inflammatory tweets against a gay fan and his coach. Over 30,000 fans petitioned the team to fire him. He tweeted and was crowdsourced right out of a job.

12. Social doesn’t hide stupid

Texas Longhorn redneck, er, I mean football player Buck Burnette shared his personal views with fans on his Facebook page after Barak Obama became the first black president of the Unities States: “All the hunters gather up, we have a #$%&er in the whitehouse”. What amazes me, besides the incredible display of hatred and sheer ignorance, is that what he chose to sensor was “the N-word”. You’re worried about that but not about publicly issuing death threats against a President? Seriously?

I’m sure there are dozens more of these crazy stories. Share other famous or personal stories of social media-induced termination with the community in the comments section below. Reminder: people read this blog, don’t get yourself fired by what you post. ☺

Featured image courtesy of Luke & Courtney Barrett licensed via Creative Commons.

Sam Fiorella

http://www.senseiwisdom.com/

Sam Fiorella is a globetrotting interactive marketing strategist who has earned his stripes over the past 20 years in senior management roles with corporate sales &marketing teams as well as consulting for more than 30 marketing agencies. Sam’s experience with over 1600 Interactive projects during the past 15 years spans the government, finance & insurance, manufacturing, national retail and travel/tourism sectors. Currently, Sam is the Chief Strategy Sensei at Sensei Marketing, where he is charged with strategic campaign guidance and marketing technology development that power the Sensei Customer Lifecycle Methodology. Sam is a respected blogger and popular keynote speaker on marketing, branding and social media communications having presented at more than 200 conferences in the past 2 years. Follow Sam on Twitter or Connect with him on LinkedIn.