Published: Jan 03, 2008 - 10:56 am
Story Found By: Wiep 1497 Days ago
Category: Social Media
4 Comments
4 Comments
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Comments
"it didnt leave me with the best taste in my mouth" nice expression, I looove it ;)
Just like in real life if i bum around town with Kfed and Spears most of the day people will probably think different of me no matter how normal I may appear.
It goes both ways though. Someone commented on my site pointing out that theyre pretty liberal and if some conservative person didnt want to hire them because their friends liked to party, they wouldnt want to work for them anyway.I could see the same thing happening in reverse. Say you are a Christian, observant Jew or a Muslim. You may keep your faith very private, but your friends might be pretty outspoken. Ive heard more than one derogatory comment about people with strong faith, mostly from those who (rightly) fear being preached to. I could see someone wanting to avoid hiring the person who hangs out with a group of evangelizers to. Not cool when done in either direction, but quite popular.Diane Aull had a good comment as well, pointing out that many HR firms are beginning to wonder if they might not get themselves in legal trouble by surfing these sites. After all, you can easily find out things on Facebook that are illegal to ask during an interview (age, sexual preference, faith, etc). If that influences your hiring decision, you could put yourself in danger of a lawsuit. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out down the road, but its something Ive started to wonder about.
I think its worth the occasional exercise...to see "friends" profiles. At a corporate level, I dont know what you can really do.On a personal note, my wife and I knocked my son off My Space 2 years ago because we got tired of his "friends " language and junk like "if you were going to commit suicide what method would you use?" and "if you were a bottle of alcohol what would it be?"I like Jennifers comment about religion. Personally, I dont think its appropriate to include religious references in a Facebook profile meant to be used for professional/corporate purposes. That said, having a separate Facebook profile to discuss religion is an entirely different matter. Seems silly to have two profiles, but thats a way to respect an employer even though both profiles inevitably will be linked by the same friends.Matt Keough here at Fathom SEO also raised some good points while posting about Jennifers piece:http://www.fathomseo.com/blog/index.php/2008/01/03/antisocial-media/"While I certainly understand her concern, I don’t share it completely. For starters, I do think that anyone sophisticated enough to be poking around Facebook (pun intended) on a reconnaissance mission might be hip enough to know that folks “friend” each other for many reasons and may be a little more indiscriminate than they are in real life. Although usually called “friends”, there is an understanding that a social media friend is not really a true blue friend, right?Secondly, just by looking at your profile they probably get a fair idea of your interests if you have developed it to any extent. If you have not developed your profile, and they are using your tertiary connections as a surrogate for your values - I question their judgment."