2008 Woodie Awards
New employers use Facebook for guide
Alex Voigt
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: Opinions
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When it comes time to enter the real world, there are many steps that you, the future college graduate, will need to take in order to prepare yourself for that all-important job interview.
It's important to prepare your resume, double-check your references, figure out a living situation and make sure your academics are in order for graduation.
But most importantly, don't forget to sterilize your Facebook profile before applying, unless you want your potential employer getting turned away by pictures of you doing a beer bong in a hot dog suit.
As if drug testing and background checks weren't enough to worry about, potential employers can now use sites like Facebook and MySpace as a pseudo-Big Brother monitoring system to screen potential employees.
This comes as a result of the explosion of social networking sites, which currently claim the attention spans of more than 70 percent of all college students in America and are the most frequently checked sites on the Internet. Anyone with an e-mail address can set up a profile on a social networking site, including potential employers.
During the application process, many businesses will run searches on potential job candidates through Facebook or MySpace to see if their future employees are up to their standards character-wise.
I didn't believe this was possible when I first heard it. But after reading an article on MSNBC.com, where it was reported that more than 20 percent of businesses use social networking sites in their hiring process, I'm starting to become a believer in this Gestapo-like tactic.
Apparently, social networking sites provide a piercing look into one's soul. Or at least that's what businesses would like to believe.
Several of my friends have responded to this potential screening by going to such measures as un-tagging pictures of themselves on Facebook or changing their profile name altogether.
Personally, I fail to see the correlation between my Facebook profile, which is mostly littered with movie quotes and confessions to my love for pancakes, and my habits as a worker.
It's important to prepare your resume, double-check your references, figure out a living situation and make sure your academics are in order for graduation.
But most importantly, don't forget to sterilize your Facebook profile before applying, unless you want your potential employer getting turned away by pictures of you doing a beer bong in a hot dog suit.
As if drug testing and background checks weren't enough to worry about, potential employers can now use sites like Facebook and MySpace as a pseudo-Big Brother monitoring system to screen potential employees.
This comes as a result of the explosion of social networking sites, which currently claim the attention spans of more than 70 percent of all college students in America and are the most frequently checked sites on the Internet. Anyone with an e-mail address can set up a profile on a social networking site, including potential employers.
During the application process, many businesses will run searches on potential job candidates through Facebook or MySpace to see if their future employees are up to their standards character-wise.
I didn't believe this was possible when I first heard it. But after reading an article on MSNBC.com, where it was reported that more than 20 percent of businesses use social networking sites in their hiring process, I'm starting to become a believer in this Gestapo-like tactic.
Apparently, social networking sites provide a piercing look into one's soul. Or at least that's what businesses would like to believe.
Several of my friends have responded to this potential screening by going to such measures as un-tagging pictures of themselves on Facebook or changing their profile name altogether.
Personally, I fail to see the correlation between my Facebook profile, which is mostly littered with movie quotes and confessions to my love for pancakes, and my habits as a worker.