Have Employers Ruined Facebook?
November 20, 2008 (10:30AM) by Brianna Raymond, CPRW
"Take down your pictures." "Delete offensive friends." "Censor your comments." Do this, do that, but whatever you do, make sure your profile is 110% employer-friendly.
I've preached all of this before, but thanks to a recent story on CNN.com, I've taken a firm stand with all you job seekers out there who want the profiling to stop!
 When did employers gain so much control over the social networking sphere? Facebook was just taking off when I was in college. Before that, everyone used MySpace. And these sites were nothing but pure fun and games; another way to keep in touch with friends and reconnect with old high school buddies.
Where did it all go wrong?
For one thing, Facebook started as a college student network, which is what made it so popular. It was a place to share photos and publicly communicate with friends in a clean, user-friendly space (unlike MySpace which is cluttered with ads and info hackers). Then, it branched out to high schoolers. After that, employees of certain companies like Apple and Microsoft were allowed to register. And finally, anyone 13 or older could sign up with a valid e-mail address. This, my friends, is where it all started going downhill for job seekers.
Unless you make your profile viewable by friends only, your info is fair game for any employer out there who's looking to dig up a little dirt on you. Not looking for a job now? You still have reason to be concerned, since employees have been fired over incriminating details found on their Facebook and MySpace profiles.
So if you want to hold onto the fun and games the old students-only membership offered, you absolutely have to make your profile private, and don't friend anyone who could negatively impact your career. We shouldn't have to worry so much about how we're portraying ourselves to our friends, but unfortunately, there is no alternative.
Today's technology is fantastic, but it's a shame to see such an entertaining, personal site make such a potentially negative impact on our careers.
What do you think? Did employers ruin Facebook?
Great blog! I use both MySpace and Facebook and both of my accounts are set to private. I never keep anything embarrassing (picture or information-wise) in my profiles. I try to keep them as clean as possible.
I would have to agree though, about getting fired over a Facebook profile. What someone does in their private life should be separate from work. As long as someone doesn't post embarrassing pictures FROM WORK, I feel like someone shouldn't get fired just because they are horsing around in their real life. As long as the employee isn't hurting anyone, I see no point.
Kathryn
As an employer it is important to me that my employees represent me well both on and off the job.
There is no privacy anywhere anymore. Once you post to the web anything, you are no longer in a private state. Social media has taken over not only the web, but the workplace and anywhere else you used to be private.
Can't party at home anymore, can't post to facebook, can't have a life, yet employers have no loyalty to their employees.
Do employers think we have no lives outside of the work place? I'm not going to post anything offensive or tasteless on my page but if somebody comments about the great time we had out the other night, what's the harm in that, particularly if we are doing our jobs and doing them well. I might work for the man but I'm not owned by him.
I use facebook as a way to communicate with siblings and family. I would never use it to offend and certainly not be "jovial" in the wrong type of way.
People change - employeers should know that.
Huh? Why would you give access to your profile to employers?
What a lot of younger people don't seem to grasp is that if you put something in to the public arena, guess what? It's FAIR GAME for employers. It's called doing a background check. Most employers do NOT want people, i.e. their employees or potential employees, embarassing them because the employee is representative of the employer. When will this younger gen learn that discretion IS a word that should be practiced to the nth degree? The meaning the word seems to be totally lost on a lot of younger employees.
I have absolutely NO sympathy for anyone who doesn't understand the meaning of the word "discretion." You put it out on the net for the world to see and you end up fired. Guess what? You deserve it.
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