Hannah Grace Tech 12.27.2021 02:Dec AM EST

Facebook Trust Issues: Why Job Hunters Are Scared of Working at Facebook

Due to Facebook trust issues, the social media giant was named "The Worst Company of The Year" in a recent poll conducted by Yahoo!

In relation to this, several applicants are scared of working at the company since the firm has lost its public trust.

Facebook Trust Issues Places Social Media Giant as 'The Worst Company Of The Year'

From the Facebook whistle-blower to its rebranding, 2021 seems to have been a terrible year for the social media giant. While the rebranding may assist in the long run, there is still a problem with Facebook's trust.

Just a few days ago, a Yahoo Finance poll named Facebook "The Worst Company In 2021."

The open-ended survey, which ran from December 4 to 5, was conducted on Survey Monkey through the Yahoo! Finance main page and garnered 1,541 responses, per New York Post.

According to Yahoo, Facebook/Meta earned eight percent of the write-in votes, with the social networking giant receiving 50 percent more votes than the runner-up, Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce business.

For background information, Facebook has been involved in a lot of scandals.

Aside from this, the company is also under antitrust scrutiny after a whistleblower claimed that Facebook neglected safety concerns in the name of growth.

At the same time, other critics claimed that Facebook has over-controlled the platform's speech, suppressing users' voices. Meanwhile, other critics believe that Facebook permits disinformation to propagate.

In addition to the conducted poll of Yahoo, a Washington Post poll also revealed that 72 percent of internet users are distrustful about Facebook.

With regards to Facebook employees, the research published by Business Insider showed that Facebook needs to pay its employees more in order to work at the said firm.

Additionally, employees defined Facebook as a "black mark" on their resumes, which explains why this is the case.

Why Applicants Are Scared of Working at Facebook?

According to one tech recruiter featured in the Business Insider article, Facebook should first pay a "brand tax" to hire employees.

When a brand rises in popularity, it is believed that its brand value would attract talented employees to seek jobs there.

For a detailed explanation of what brand tax is, Medium described it is an extra investment that well-known businesses spend on brand promotion and product delivery.

In the case of Facebook, however, the opposite occurs.

According to internal data leaked to the public, the corporation had over 4,300 available positions with decreasing candidates.

In 2021, numerous senior executives of Facebook left the firm. Through this, the employee equity and base salary have also been generously enhanced by the corporation, which the employees called the "cost of losing public trust."

Facebook trust issues are the result of the Facebook brand tax.

The brand tax, on the other hand, is likely to hinder the social media giant's efforts to recover public confidence. It has now become a vicious cycle, and rebranding and public relations are one of the company's ways to stop it.

Is It Possible for Facebook to Recover from Trust Issues?

According to Yahoo, around 30 percent of Yahoo Finance readers who participated in the poll thought Facebook or Meta could save the company.

One responder stated that Facebook might redeem itself by admitting and apologizing for what it did, as well as donating a "significant portion" of its income to a charity to assist the harm it caused.

Meanwhile, one way it might make up for dissatisfied investors would be to raise its stock price.