A recent college graduate walks into a job interview with a prestigious company: Expensive suit? Check. A resume boasting the most impressive accomplishments? Check. Perfect answers to all questions? Check.
A job offer? Nope.
In an age where social networking is becoming as mainstream as listing your name in the White Pages, students are discovering that their Facebook profiles can work for or against them when employers look to social networking sites to prescreen potential employees.
When the man in a sleek suit who aced an interview on Monday does not match up with the man pictured passed out in an alley in a Facebook photo album titled, “Blacked Out Bar Hop,” employers might reject someone who on paper appears an ideal employee.
According to a 2008 survey by CarreerBuilder.com, 22 percent of employers said they look at applicants’ social networking sites in the hiring process, and an additional 9 percent plan to do the same soon.
While some students might feel that this is a violation of their privacy, many agree that employers have the right to screen potential employees via Facebook.
Cal Poly graduate student Gil Diaz said, “If you don’t want someone to see something, don’t put it on the Internet or set your profile to private. I feel like if you are posting on the Internet, then it’s fair game.”
Whether you have something to hide, Facebook clearly writes in its terms of agreement, that “you post User Content on the Site at your own risk. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other Users with whom you may choose to share your pages and information.”
Facebook is a public forum, meaning that users’ information is open to anyone. Privacy settings are available, however, to limit who can view your profile.
To get a rough idea of how many Cal Poly students use the privacy settings, I randomly clicked on 50 Cal Poly students’ profiles. Of those 50, 34 were blocked. Of the 16 that I was able to view, nine had pictures that displayed drinking, drugs or other scandalous behavior.
What remains ambiguous is how severely employers judge potential employees’ profiles.
While I do not believe that how a person behaves in a professional environment Monday through Friday is necessarily connected to how they choose to spend their free time, I would hope that most employers are not unreasonably critical about what they view on Facebook pages.
Kicking back at a party with a beer in hand on a weekend should not prevent someone from getting hired. However, a picture of someone recklessly drinking on several occasions who is applying to be an alcohol and drug counselor could presumably be a deal breaker.
While judging a potential employee from a picture at a party is one thing, judging someone based on their gender, religious views, political views, sexual orientation or marital status (all information which people can choose to display on Facebook) is against the law.
An employer would never ask someone in an interview what their political views are or what religion they follow because it is against the law to discriminate based on those factors.
There is no way, however, to determine whether a potential employee was rejected because of a picture.
Rather than worrying about how one’s Facebook profile affects their chances of being hired, people can make their profiles work in their favor.
While Facebook is generally used as a way to connect with friends, social networking doesn’t have to just be a place to post party pictures, comment back and forth with friends and update your friends on what you are eating for dinner.
Instead, social networking sites can be used to build visibility and credibility, to post work clips and to stay updated with developments in your field.