Everyone has one. If you are a college student and don’t have one, get one.
Or should you? Facebook has taken on a world of its own since its founding in February of 2004. College students, teachers, parents, and in reality those of all ages have found the freedom to put anything on the internet under their own supervision. However, for prospective job candidates, such as college graduates, Facebook could mean the end to their short-lived careers.
Alan Finder of the New York Times wrote in June of 2006 about the effects of Facebook and other social networking sites in competitive job market. He cites interviews with several recruiters and universities, all of whom have a resounding response.
Trudy G. Steinfeld of New York University works as a recruiter for over thirty companies. She uses the term “red flags” as the questionable evidence found on a social networking sites that could lead prospective job candidates to lose their position. These red flags could be anything ranging from risqué pictures, to a humorous essay posted on the popular journaling website, Xanga.
As a personal user of Facebook, I find it hard to grasp that all my hard work and refined education after four years could possibly be all for not, simply because of what I choose to show on a website. After all, there are privacy settings, which I can control.
However, as Patricia Rose of the University of Pennsylvania attests, companies can gain access to these networking sites, past the privacy settings, using college students working as interns. These background checks can be as in-depth as working past privacy settings on Facebook, to simply “Googling” a candidates name.
What is a college graduate to do? With the ever-growing importance of Facebook, some students choose to turn a cold shoulder to the warnings and continue using this website freely. Others are deleting them altogether. Students of this social networking age have found themselves in a pickle. Some classes, even here at Loyola University, allow students to forum about their ideas and questions on Facebook. So what are we to do? In my opinion Facebook, or any social networking user, should seriously censor what they put on the internet. A college degree, student loans, and four years of a specialized education are not worth the social status some gain by posting questionable pictures on a website.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/us/11recruit.html?pagewanted=1
For a similar opinion, here is a video of Brian Krueger, President of CollegeGrad.com
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