Career limiting moves...

I ran across this article from Baseline and thought it was interesting enough to rant about. The jist of the article is that you need to be careful about what you put on your 'myspace' or 'facebook' site due to the fact that recruiters and HR folks are using these as a way to screen potential employees.

Imagine, a future employer visiting your social networking site and finding out something about you that is very different from the way they think about it. For example, you like to 'Party like a Rock Star' every night and you are applying for a job working for a high school as a guidance counselor. Although it may not be right (and maybe it is right) that they use that in their decision process, the fact of the matter is that it will influence their position on whether or not they hire you. Kind of like tattoos that creep up your neck and stick out when you are in your 'interview' suit. Like it or not - the interviewer is going to form an opinion about you. (I call these types of things - career limiting moves...)

Another thought is that you can use these sites in a purposeful way to promote yourself. It also talks about the site 'LinkedIn', which could be equated to a 'professional' version of myspace/facebook. Using sites like these, might be a good backup to a resume. On 'LinkedIn' you can create a lot of content about yourself and the potential employer could learn a lot more about you with out having to create (and read) a 5 page resume.

So, I am not sayaying to hide who you are, just be aware of the ramifications..... Until next time - Enjoy!

Social Networking - Who owns the data?

Read an interesting article today about the data that is kept on social networking sites (facebook, myspace, etc.). To be honest, I had never really thought about it before, but I guess if you don't pay for the site, should you have a right to own the data that you put there???

Facebook can spy on me??

OK - not that I really care what data Facebook employees can see of mine, it does bring up some interesting points about privacy. Having been a sys admin in a past life, it comes down to being able to see what everyone is doing vs. actually seeing what everyone is doing. Ethics anyone...