<p>Actually, it's more of an internship search situation. Yesterday I submitted my application via e-mail for my top choice summer internship. I e-mailed it to the intern coordinator, let's call him "Alex Smith." Today I came back from class to find that "Alex Smith" had added me as a friend on Facebook. </p>
<p>I'm not sure how familiar everyone is with facebook, but basically, when someone adds you as a friend, you can either confirm or reject it. If you confirm the "friendship" the person who requested the friendship can see your profile, including pictures of yourself, interests, favorite quotes, etc. Now I don't have anything particularly incriminating in my profile, but I guess there are some things that could be "interpreted" the wrong way. There are a couple pictures of me holding a beer with a group of friends (no drunken debauchery pictures though). Maybe they will think I have awful taste music. Maybe I'm not intellectual enough because there are only 3 books listed under my favorite books category, etc, etc. </p>
<p>I don't really know how to proceed in this situation. I have heard of employers secretly looking up job candidates' profiles, but never outright friending someone in order to see their information. I feel like it is kind of unethical for the intern coordinator to be "snooping" on me by adding me as a facebook friend when he has made no other contact with me. No e-mail to confirm the receipt of my application, no phone call, no arrangement of an interview. Just a facebook friend request. At the same time, this is pretty much my dream internship so I don't think it would be in my best interest to reject the "friendship" request. I guess I could just delete any personal information from my profile. But I feel like it might be kind of obvious that I deleted info since most people fill out all of the personal information categories. </p>
<p>What should I do in this situation? I really don't know how to proceed and any advice would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Can you just ignore the request and neither confirm nor reject? Perhaps the interviewer will assume you're too busy with your studies to check facebook more than every once in a while.</p>
<p>"I feel like it is kind of unethical for the intern coordinator to be "snooping" on me by adding me as a facebook friend when he has made no other contact with me. "</p>
<p>What's unethical about it? Anyone could be asking to be your Facebook friend. Indeed, it would be possible for people using assumed names to be asking to be your Facebook friend, and you'd have no idea that such people are considering you for jobs.</p>
<p>I agree with PrimetimeMom: Make your facebook job friendly.</p>
<p>I'm curious: How'd the prospective employer find you on Facebook?</p>
<p>I'm fairly sure that one can read people's Facebook entries even if one isn't a friend. There are ways around the system.</p>
<p>I would consider it to be "job friendly." There's nothing there that I wouldn't want my Grandma to see. I'm just saying that certain things that seem innocent enough could be interpreted the wrong way by an employer and there is the potential to be judged on things other than job-related skills. </p>
<p>The intern coordinator is on facebook. He just typed my name into the search box and added me as a friend. You typically can't read someone's facebook profile unless you go to the same college, and even then you can set your account so that only your friends can see it (which many people, including myself, do)</p>
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I'm just saying that certain things that seem innocent enough could be interpreted the wrong way by an employer and there is the potential to be judged on things other than job-related skills.
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<p>Forget your grandma. If certain things could be interpreted the wrong way by a potential employer then it's not job-friendly. The proof is that you're worried about it.</p>
<p>I know my son doesn't use his facebook very much. He never posts photos of himself or anyone else and rarely looks at messages. If people ask to be a "friend" it might be weeks before he takes an action on it.</p>
<p>I vote with the people who say just ignore it and they can presume you are too busy to mess with it.</p>
<p>Back in the olden days, before there was an internet, and before employment litigation became a legal specialty, people tended to get jobs from other people in their community -- people who had known them for years, warts and all, and had observed them in a variety of social circumstances. The notion that every applicant has a zone of privacy they are entitled to protect from their employers, but not from dozens or hundreds of other people, is a very recent development in the world, and Facebook may just kill it dead.</p>
<p>In a sense, that's a great development -- a way for your prospective employer to get an idea what you are like as a whole person even if your dad and he weren't at Choate (or in the Corsican Mafia, or at the March on Washington) together, and you haven't been sneaking booze at his annual Christmas party since you were 10. And your prospective employer gets a couple of points for doing it forthrightly rather than covertly (e.g., having other interns at your school use their accounts).</p>
<p>But, yes, you should employer-proof the page ASAP, then graciously accept the friending (unless you are so creeped out by the whole thing you don't want to work there anymore).</p>
<p>My D and several of her friends closed their xangas/facebooks etc because they found out a highly positioned adult from their school spent hours snooping on them. There was a definite 'creepiness' factor knowing this 50+ year old man spent time reading their postings. She never had anything inappropriate posted but it really made her realise you don't know who is watching you on the internet. A better lesson than I could teach her however much I lectured her about the dangers of the net!</p>
<p>It's possible to both accept the friend request for the purpose of making nice and still protect yourself from divulging any personal information that could be potentially incriminating.</p>
<p>Put "alex smith" on your limited profile list under the privacy settings, and then pick and choose exactly what you want him to see. That way, you can hide pictures, or off-color groups, or anything else, without having to delete it from your regular friends' view.</p>
<p>You could always email back the intern coordinator, and soften the "deny" with "I'm sorry, my facebook is for family communications, I didn't set it up for professional communications. If there are other questions you have for me you can contact me directly at <a href="mailto:xxxx@xxx.edu">xxxx@xxx.edu</a>." I personally think it is a bit unprofessional for them to try and add themselves to your friend list. And I suspect if you respond like that they may get that what they are doing is like listening in on your conversation with your mom.</p>
<p>Yeah, add him but only give him access to your limited profile. Or you can go under your privacy settings and set it so nobody can see more tagged pictures of you.</p>
<p>My h.s. daughter had this same thing happen with a "scholarship counselor" at a college she applied to. When the counselor asked to be a friend, she didn't feel like she had any alternative than to say 'okay'. The school is offering her a free ride and the counselor leaves messages on her wall regarding their hope that she will attend the school. D feels like she is being "stalked" and jokingly asked if I thought she needed a "restraining order".</p>
<p>Yep, limited profile. No pics, no groups, no wall posts, no "about" me or interests sections. You can leave it so he can see who your friends are and just your contact information. This is what I did when my aunt added me as a facebook friend.</p>
<p>I have to wonder how an employer facebook-friending someone and then denying them for the position could be opening them up for bad press... I admit I have no idea what the legal take would be, but it seems if an employer rejects an applicant who happened to list on their facebook profile that they were gay (for example), they would be opening themselves up to the potential for a lawsuit, which would be bad publicity even though it's probably not provable (unless the employer was dumb enough to put: OMG His facebook says he's gay!" in an e-mail)</p>
<p>I find this thread interesting. We "grown-ups" like to opine about on-line accounts being public, so too bad if someone reads bad stuff about you; you put it out there. But it's obvoius from reading these posts that this is not true; you do need to give access to the account, not anyone can just read it, at least in the case of Facebook.</p>
<p>That being the case, there is something very bullying about a potential employer "requesting" he be added as a friend, fully knowing that the potential employee may not feel he/she can safely turn them down.</p>
<p>Is it much different from him showing up at your house and "asking" to read your mail? I think this is an area that ethics/etiquette needs to address; it seems very shaky to me, and yes, creepy.</p>
<p>I like the "ignore" idea; I know my S rarely bothers with his facebook account, and could legitimately miss a request like that.</p>
<p>UCD alum had it spot on. Reply back to coordinator along the professional lines. Done correctly(politely), this helps establish work boundries that will be respected.</p>
<p>Facebook info for parents: Ignoring the request is the same as rejecting it. People are not notified if they are rejected. If they are accepted, the friend is added. If the request is ignored or rejected, nothing happens. Accounts are only visible to members of the same network (such as the college network) and people approved as "friends." It is possible to set privacy levels so that your account is not visible to your network (besides friends), to show limited profile information, or to make your account unsearchable (no clue how you do that, but known college athletes and famous people do it).</p>
<p>I think you can reject/ignore the request or give access to a very limited profile.</p>