 "Photo: Ken Muir")
The next time a student learns he or she has been tagged in a photo from the last weekend's party on www.facebook.com or www.myspace.com, it may be in his or her best interest to take a look.
With more than 37,000 people on Facebook's Texas Tech network and countless more on MySpace, students clearly are using social networking sites, but so are their future bosses.
According to a 2006 study conducted by CareerBuilder.com, 12 percent of hiring managers searched their applicants' social networking profiles before hiring them. Of those who checked job candidates' online network profiles, 63 percent did not hire an applicant based on what they had found on those sites.
CareerBuilder offers three tips when it comes to personal Web pages, said Theresa Chu, senior career adviser for the company: be careful, be prepared and be discreet.
Students can be careful by not posting anything on their own or their friends' sites that they would not want an employer to see, she said. They can be prepared by anticipating any questions employers might have after investigating their personal pages.
Discreetness, Chu said, comes through closely monitoring who has access to their online profiles and access to what applicants write on others' profiles.
"You can control what you put on your site, but you can't always control your friends," she said. "In terms of the comment function or being able to write on your wall on Facebook, you just want to make sure you're monitoring those comments. If you find that it's getting out of control, completely turn that function off."
Carol Albert, operations manager at the Eastridge Group, a multi-state group of staffing companies, said she has been in the hiring business for 16 years and routinely references applicants' profiles on social networks after an interview and before hiring them, especially for permanent or professional positions - positions college students often fill.
"For our permanent staff, our professional staff, it's worth a look," she said. "It's one of the tools, and it's becoming more and more useful now, because practically everybody has a MySpace page."
During 2005, in a study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 11 percent of employers reported referencing an applicant's social networking site before hiring him or her, said Andrea Koncz, employment information manager for the association.
In a similar study conducted by the association in 2007, the number rose to 17 percent.
David Kraus, managing director of the Tech Career Service, said employers are turning to social networking sites more and more to take a closer look at job candidates, a trend that has and will continue to grow.
Because networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have become more popular in recent years, Kraus said, employers have caught wind and are utilizing their potential for background checks.
"Five years from now, or one year from now, who's to say there won't be something else that replaces that?" Kraus asked. "I don't know what it'll be, and it might take employers a few years to latch on to that, too."
When it comes to the content of social network profiles, Jay Killough, employer relations coordinator for the university's career service, said common sense and good judgment often are good indicators of where to draw the line between acceptable and scandalous. He recommends not post anything "your grandmother wouldn't approve of."
"The threshold there could vary from individual and from employer to employer," he said. "Obviously, you want to keep it somewhat clean. It's better to err on the side of conservative."
As an employer, Albert said she does not look for anything in particular when she checks social profiles. The point is to get a better feel for the applicant's character, though she realizes people are entitled to their fun. In the hiring process, profiles are "another piece of the puzzle."
"Obviously, we know people have a life," she said. "(We look for) just something that is contradictory to what they said. Maybe looking for something that's just too over the top, but it's not used as a deal breaker. We know that people party, but if their entire MySpace page is dedicated to the habit, then probably they wouldn't be a good fit."
One example of what is best left unsaid on such sites, Kraus said, is anything that reflects negatively on a person's current or previous employer. Hiring managers who come across derogatory remarks about other employers may begin to the believe an applicant chronically has trouble getting along in a workplace.
"That may not be the story at all," he said, "but if they see you or another student speaking poorly of the place they work or once worked, it doesn't leave a good taste in their mouth."
Often times, college students should approach their graduation thinking professional thoughts, Albert said. Employers not only are looking at social profiles but also such seemingly tedious things as unconventional e-mail addresses. If graduates wants to be competitive in the job market, they may want to consider taking a close look at their lifestyles.
"What I always tell college students is that the moment you get your first resume out there, you have to get into game mode," she said. "If you're serious about getting a good job, you have to get your game face on and that might be toning down your MySpace page and having a professional page to refer people to."
While sites such as Facebook and MySpace provide social networking, sites like LinkedIn.com offer networking in the scope of professional utility, said Kay Luo, director of corporate communication for the company. The site, which began in 2003, now connects more than 18 million professionals, including executives from all 500 of the Fortune 500 companies.
"The other sites are more about learning about what hobbies you like or looking at your photos or whatnot," she said. "This is where you present your professional self, which is really the content that most people, as a default, would prefer people find."
Luo said at LinkedIn, basic accounts include looking at profiles within your network and are free. Once users are able to reference other profiles, they then can gain additional contacts through people they already know within their own personal contacts. These contacts may include, for example, a potential employer.
Another benefit of LinkedIn: if a subscriber fills out his or her profile completely, Luo said, it increases the chances the LinkedIn account will come up high on a search engine's result list when the person's name is entered. With the professional profile appearing higher on the list, employers are more likely to reference an applicant's professional profile.
"With the Internet, so much information about everyone, companies are doing their due diligence before they hire," Luo said. "You definitely want to make sure that you do everything that you can to put your best foot forward for that audience."
Social networking sites will remain on the Web, Luo said, because informal personal networking always will have its place. Professional networking sites always will have their places, too.
However, blending the two could spell trouble, she said, as people tend to act differently around friends than they do around their coworkers or bosses.
"I think, when it pertains to college students, what's important is you have got to build your network before you need it, so if you start connecting to people - you know, professors, your parents' friends who are well-networked out there - then it's going to be incredibly valuable," Luo said.
Kraus and Killough said they cannot recall any specific instances of students becoming less competitive for a position because of a social networking profile.
"Although, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened," Kraus said. "I think, for the most part, our students are going to use good judgment."
Bettina Seidman, president of SEIDBET Associates, a career coaching firm in New York City, said some students may want to make a decision.
"They can stay on Facebook," she said. "They can edit their Facebook profiles and make changes, or they can take them down. They can't make believe that people aren't looking at them - all kinds of people: good people and bad people."
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