Social Networking Sites: Be Careful Who You Befriend?

Should job applicants be worried about what their friends on MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn may say about them to potential employers? If they are applying to the company the gentleman referenced in this article works for, then maybe. But is it a good practice for this guy to be secretly contacting his candidates’ friends on these sites to get the dirt on them? Absolutely not! If you are an avid reader of our blog, you know the reasons why. But if you are new to our site or just want a refresher course on why using social networking sites to vett your potential employees is a bad idea, click here for our in depth coverage of this topic.
Applying For A Job? Clean Yourself Up On Facebook
Forget the resume. Background checks are going cyber. Chances are your potential employer is logging on to Facebook to check you out. And that means you may want to look carefully at who your friends are.
More and more companies and recruiters are using social networking sites like Facebook or Linked In to check out applicants and to talk to their list of contacts and friends.
Tiana Barci is looking for a job right now. She had no idea companies could be looking at her Facebook page and her messages to friends.
“I wouldn’t want someone I was trying to get a job with asking these random strangers things about me they might just make something up and then that looks bad on me and then I lose basically, ” says Barci.
Employers will often look at your top ten results on Google. And from Google, you can find people with a Facebook or a Linked In profile. That’s what Gabe Bodner does. He’s a mortgage broker for a South Bay company.
“I’ll typically just type in somebody’s name, a candidate’s name into Google and see if there’s anything that pops up,” says Bodner.
Bodner has never contacted an applicant’s friends on Facebook or Linked In, but he won’t rule out doing it.

“It’s very appropriate to be aware of who you are dealing with and who you’re hiring That might be dealing with your client’s personal information,” says Bodner.
Michael Fertik who founded “Reputation Defender”, a privacy and reputation management service, says you must be smart about who you select as friends on these sites because they reflect who you are.
“A friend and an acquaintance might have a lot to say about that topic even if they don’t know they’re talking to a recruiter or even if they don’t think that what they’re saying is relevant to the job that they’re applying for,” says Fertik.
So what can you do beyond deleting some of your friends?
Many job consultants suggest creating a list of recommendations on your Facebook site to give you back a bit of control.
Make sure your references are specific to the industry you want to enter. But consultants say don’t drop the ball on developing your traditional three-person reference list because many companies still use it as a key hiring tool.
Article by, Natalie Beck and courtesy of EmployeescreenIQ

Originally posted by Candice A