It’s time for a Facebook lift

This past May I saw my classmates make the transition from college to the working world. They traded in their sweatshirts for business suits, swapped their flip-flops for more appropriate shoes, and replaced their backpacks with chic totes. Their voicemail messages started sounding more professional and less like my friends. They did all of this to look more appealing to employers. However, most of them forgot that employers may be looking somewhere else to differentiate their potential employees—online.

It’s true. Employers are increasingly using internet sites such as Facebook and MySpace to conduct background checks on their job prospects.

According to a New York Times article, many users see their social networking profile as a relatively private form of self expression, a place for them to post often risqué photographs and provocative comments about drinking and recreational drug use.

Many social networkers think that what happens in these social networking sites stays there. However, a lot of these sites have become more lenient in their privacy policies. Take Facebook for example. It started as an exclusive social networking site for college students (a college e-mail address was required), and has since opened its doors to the rest of the world (well, anyone with some type of e-mail address). Furthermore, as CNN reported, Facebook announced last fall that users’ public profiles will find their way into search engine indexes (Google, Yahoo, etc.).

So before you work on brushing up your resume and practicing those interview questions, you may want to take a look at your MySpace profile. If your mom wouldn’t like it, there’s a good chance a hiring manager wouldn’t either.