Can social networking sites affect your future?

By Breanna Bishop on May 10, 2012

As college students, most of us belong to at least one social networking site. It’s a convenient way to stay in touch with friends and family and build new opportunities.

Social media has reshaped the way we live and communicate. While it has impacted our lives in a mostly positive way, it can also greatly impact your future opportunities if you aren’t cognizant of what you do online.

Most companies check out social profiles when screening for new employees and having the wrong thing on your Facebook page or Twitter timeline can come back to bite you.

1. Crazy pictures.

I can’t count how many times I’ve seen photos of acquaintances with dozens of bottles of tequila on their kitchen table, blacked out or doing something else that can raise a few eyebrows. Sure, it’s your personal life outside of your professional image. However, companies are nosy and by now, we all know that they’re going to snoop around our profiles. Untagging yourself in wild pictures or limited certain albums to certain people can really help limit this problem.

2. Bad attitude.

If you constantly badmouth your current or old job, then companies are going to look at you negatively. Sure, your old job sucked, but what will badmouthing your old boss do? It’ll make you look bitter and your prospective boss might think that you’ll just go online and talk badly about him or her. Bashing coworkers can also make you look pretty terrible, it could signal that you don’t really work well with others and no one wants that kind of person on their staff.

3. Your wild friends.

I think we all have a few people on our friends list who post crazy stuff on our walls and timelines or tag us in the background of a crazy picture. While these people aren’t applying for the job you want, they can affect what employers think. Your friends’ behavior can lead employers to believe that you’re just like them and they may use that against you.

Some companies are now even asking applicants for their passwords to their social networking accounts, which brings up an entirely different post on privacy limits.

While I think that employers using Facebook and other sites to screen applicants is a bit intrusive, I know that they’re more than likely going to try to look at my profiles. I think that Facebook’s privacy controls were made for a reason, which is why mostly all of my information is limited to my friends only. A person’s personal life and professional life should be separate, but the ease of googling someone and finding their life story blurs those lines a little. I think that social media is a great tool to reconnect with people and gain great professional connections, but we have to remember that what we post online will always be around and our future careers may rest on a decision we made without much thought.

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