I have two cousins enrolled in nearby colleges, both are excellent students who hold down part time jobs in addition to carrying full academic loads. They also spend quite a bit of down time on the Internet–one has even contributed Spring Break photos to a MySpace page. Sounds innocent enough, but I don’t think it is a coincidence that recently both received school-wide warnings from their respective universities warning all students about what they post online, and how it could impact future job searches.
I read the form letter the schools issued. It cited a new study that found employers are searching social networking sites, like MySpace and Face Book, to try and dig up dirt on job candidates. The letter recommends not posting “questionable photos.” Which I assume means while sites such as MySpace allow you to show off documented examples of your “partying” skills to friends, you may not want future employers to see them and use them to form the wrong impression prior to meeting you in person.
One Internet site called Careerbuilder.com claims one in four hiring managers use search engines to check out potential candidates. Half of the managers said they did not hire the person because of what they found. I don’t blame them. Have you seen some of the pictures posted on MySpace pages? The word “incriminating” comes to mind. On the other hand, I can’t help but think that most of what is posted by these college-age students is done rather innocently.
Nevertheless, now the students attending the colleges my cousins do have no more excuses–they have been officially warned not to be careless. In addition, the flip side of this issue is that employers are trying to protect themselves. Who wants to hire someone who claims to be one way, but turns out to a liability to the company by making poor social choices?
The universities that sent out the letter provided this tip to potential student job seekers: “ ‘Google’ your name to find out what kind of information is floating around the Internet.” If you find some unflattering information, in some cases website owners will agree to remove the postings.
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