Facebook: A Window To You
As college students you’re all aware that employers are using facebook more and more to research you before they decide to hire or interview you. However, this NYT article (contributed by Julie Geng via email) lays out the problems with clarity and intensity. Some of their examples will blow you away:
Ms. Rose said a recruiter had told her he rejected an applicant after searching the name of the student, a chemical engineering major, on Google. Among the things the recruiter found, she said, was this remark: “I like to blow things up.”
This is atypical of a college facebook profile. Usually, they tend more towards the following:
[E]xplicit photographs and commentary about the student’s sexual escapades, drinking and pot smoking, including testimonials from friends. Among the pictures were shots of the young woman passed out after drinking.
Students have a tendency to ignore the image their facebook profile creates to non-college students and recruiters:
“I never really considered that employers would do something like that,” he said. “I thought they would just look at your résumé and grades.”
However, according to the article, they have a different perspective:
“I was just shocked by the amount of stuff that she was willing to publicly display,” Ms. Homayoun said. “When I saw that, I thought, ‘O.K., so much for that.’”
Go read the whole article, and if you have a facebook profile that might be offensive, think about your future and censor yourself.
| This entry was posted on Monday, June 12th, 2006 at 12:44 pm and is tagged with nyt article, sexual escapades, college facebook, pot smoking, google, homayoun, nyt, different perspective, geng, chemical engineering, recruiter, college students, email, young woman, intensity, clarity, tendency, photographs, testimonials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback. |
3 Responses to “Facebook: A Window To You”
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And as we all know everything on the Internet is absolutely true. Especially on Facebook.
Another take on this NYT deal.
No need to censor yourself. Just go to “My Privacy” and make sure your options are set so that only people you have approved as friends can see your profile.
If an employer is looking at your profile through a friend’s account, you have bigger problems than what’s on your facebook profile.
I think facebook is a great way to keep in touch with friends and as accounts can only be viewed by your friends i would hope my future employers werent illegally hacking into peoples accounts to be nosy.
Anyway what do people expect to find out on facebook? I wouldnt be advertising my “sexual escapades” and if something was mentioned perhaps through a friends comment on my wall or something, I would hope my *** life would not be a factor in deciding if i was the right kind of person for the job. Isnt that discrimination?