Employers Have MySpace/Facebook Accounts?

As a first year student at Seton Hall University you are among a college population that relies heavily on internet social sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, and/or Friendster, to name a few.

What may be unknown to most students is that these sites have been of interest to potential employers, providing them an opportunity to access "more information about the applicant." For example, employees who have recently graduated often retain their college e-mail addresses, which enable them to view pages on Facebook.

“Sometimes, too, companies ask college students working as interns to perform online background checks, said Patricia Rose, the director of career services at the University of Pennsylvania (source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/us/11recruit.html?ex=1307678400&en=ddfbe1e3b386090b&ei=5090). MySpace, on the other hand, is the 3rd most visited U.S. website with an average age of a MySpace user to be thirty five years old. Employers performing searches to find revealing photos and explicit “friend comments” may think twice about the status of your application.

According to Alan Finder (2006) this has been going on for quite a while. Many companies that recruit on college campuses have been using search engines like Google and Yahoo for a long time to conduct background checks, but now the focus has been shifted to internet social sites, as they provide more information (source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/us/11recruit.html?ex=1307678400&en=ddfbe1e3b386090b&ei=5090).

The other perspective to consider is that these sites can be used in a positive way, as a means of exposure. “Use them to your advantage…learn how to manage your social network accounts to showcase your strengths, avoid pitfalls and maximize your professional visibility” says Elaine Young, faculty member at Champlain College (source: http://www.champlain.edu/news/news_display.php?article=05-07-07a.php). The main concern is to be aware of the “cyberspace visibility." It is important to monitor your account and how you may be portraying yourself to a future employer.