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Your Employer Has Just Written on Your Wall: Facts about Facebook
By Emily Clifton ’08
STAFF WRITER

As All students have heard of them. MySpace. Facebook. The advent of online communities that occurred in the last few years has brought an onslaught of questions, and one of the largest is privacy.
In case you have not jumped on the bandwagon, there are internet sites that specialize in networking capabilities for the general public. Such sites allow you to enter some personal information, sometimes upload photos, and connect with your peers (you hope, and not an impersonator).

For those who currently enjoy such sites as Facebook, at first, the joy of joining clubs, posting and tagging photos of friends and writing comments on each others’ pages is incredibly enticing. Once the novelty wears off, most people leave their pages as is… that is, until the posted information becomes a prime place to investigate the personal life of the owner by pretty much anybody. While this usually includes candidates for a date, or friends from other colleges, it is increasingly likely that strangers might be reading that same information and looking at your party photos. Often, employers are looking too.

A recent study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that 26.9% of employers surveyed reported that they had “Googled” and/or “Facebooked” potential job candidates on social networking sites, which include the ever-popular Facebook and MySpace. Some employers refer to checking such sources as the “second step” in the hiring process. But if these sites are for networking use, why are they able to get in to see such information?

There is false security in the idea that only other college students are networking on such sites. Facebook used to be limited to colleges, but is now open to high school students. The so-called “private” status of our personal networking pages is not really protected by simply stating, “viewing of profiles is only available to other members.” In fact, all you need is an email address to become a member of such sites, and herein lies the danger.

While only 7.4% of employers reported viewing such profiles as “standard practice” for screening of all employees, it is reported by 41.2% as an occasional practice. This means that while it is not an official “policy” of the company to check your profile, it is not uncommon for some to do so.

Not only is the practice common, but also it is spreading. While only 1.1% of employers planned to make it a definite practice in the future, 35.1% said they might do so in the future.

The bottom line is, it is never a bad idea to check that your personal information is not readily available, even if you do not necessarily want to leave the online community. Facebook allows you to display as much or as little information about yourself as you wish, as does MySpace. Other sites, such as Friendster.com, Ryze.com and LinkedIn.com allow similar controls.

And it’s not just your information that you may want to check. Any personal photos posted will certainly be on the list of things your employer or other parents might be checking. In a recent article in CareerJournal.com, it was noted specifically by an employer that he turned down a highly qualified applicant simply because when he looked at the applicant’s profile on Tribe.net, he found photos of the applicant’s body art and piercings.

Other telltale aspects you may want to eliminate from your photos are instances of drinking (especially underage!), smoking, inappropriate dress and indecent acts. You may also want to watch the bad grammer or typos, descriptions of your sexual and political preferences, and so on.

Legally, the information posted on the internet is public domain. There is nothing legally preventing employers from both “Googling” you and checking for your membership to any sort of networking sites like Facebook. In many cases, they can access your profile and dig as deep as they wish.

Any information that is discovered may be used both to hire you and to fire you, and is even considered when employees are up for promotion, according to Jeremy Gruber, legal director of the National Workrights Institute.

Any information you post on your friends’ profiles or write in your blog is also fair game. Your screen name, email address and any comments on your photos can also give employers insight into your character and influence decisions about your job. The best thing you can do is keep tabs on what information is available, if any.

Along with cleaning up your profile in case someone is watching, you can also take the time to be educated about what information is available by doing a basic web search. “Google” yourself—you might be surprised what you find!

Ultimately, Facebook and MySpace are effectively communication tools, but students need to each take the steps to safeguard their privacy, and part of that process is taking an honest look at what information is out there.