<p>Do You Know Who's Facebooking You?</p>
<p>Increasingly, employers are using Facebook and similar websites to learn more about job candidates. According to a May 25 Tampa Tribune article, almost 75 percent of recruiters recently surveyed in the Norwalk, CT, area routinely research applicants online.* Over one third said they have eliminated candidates because of what they discovered*</p>
<p>Employers access Facebook by using their alma maters' email addresses, or by <em>hiring college students to do the research for them.</em> </p>
<p>A Miami ad agency creative director quoted in the article says his company regularly uses Facebook to dig deeper about applicants. "Sometimes these sites are better than resumes because we figure out what a person is really like. Will they fit into our culture? Are they funny? Witty? Are they knowledgeable? Passionate?"</p>
<p>Dateline recently explored this issue, and you can view this segment in the following link: <a href="http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com/weblog/archives/2006/05/nbc_interview.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com/weblog/archives/2006/05/nbc_interview.php</a> </p>
<p>What to do?
1. Before posting a statement or picture ask yourself, "Is this something I want a potential employer to know about me?"
2. Find out what's posted about you on other students' pages.
3. Google yourself and see what comes up.
4. Remove any information you can that you don't want for public consumption. (Afterall, it IS the World Wide Web.)
5. Feel free to consult the CDO for advice about this or any aspect of your job search.</p>
<p>As far as Facebook goes, a lot of students make their profiles only viewable by their friends and that helps. But, if you join any groups or networks it is easy to see who your friends are and then look at their pages to glean some information. Even for students who do this and remove the tags from all of the photos that their friends post, I've seen some untagged photos of them in "quetionable" situations on their friend's pages. If any of my friends post a photo that I don't like, I just ask them nicely to remove it and they do. Of course, that's usually just because I think I don't look good in the photo. :-)</p>
<p>At the point that I'm looking for a job, I'll be sure to remove any profiles that I have on the web. You never know what might turn an individual employer off to the idea of hiring you. Some hiring managers may be put off by the thought of hiring a member of a political party or religion that they don't agree with. People have prejudices and it affects their actions.</p>
<p>As far as Facebook goes, a lot of students make their profiles only viewable by their friends and that helps]]</p>
<p>Nothing is safe. :)</p>
<p>"Shaun Harrison, 18, and Saverio Mondelli, 19, of Suffolk County, N.Y. allegedly hacked into the social networking site and stole personal information from MySpace users."</p>
<p><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MYSPACE_EXTORTION?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-05-25-00-02-21%5B/url%5D">http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MYSPACE_EXTORTION?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-05-25-00-02-21</a></p>
<p>I asked a friend of mine to take an embarrassing photo of me down and she did. An astronaut was visiting our class and my friend had her camera- conveniently catching me blowing my nose.</p>
<p>I think I'm glad I do have a Facebook account with several photos of me. We recently discovered that there is someone else with my name on the internet- same middle initial, but different middle name. She has a myspace account and is two years younger than I am, and lives in a different state. She is also rather sketchy. Her profiles is full of swears and I can't imagine anyone would want to hire her after reading it. Trust me when I tell you she's quite a special girl. However, I think if someone stalks Facebook, they'll see that I have brown hair (not blond), am two years older, and not that other person.</p>