Not All Profiles Click With Employers
Published: Apr 25, 2006
TAMPA - Lisette Szeto thinks she'll have a lot to offer an employer when she graduates in December. The English major will hold a degree from the University of Tampa, and she has a bubbly personality and an exciting social life.
But it may be more exciting than she wants the world to know, now that she's job hunting.
Szeto, 22, soon plans to shut down her Web site at MySpace.com, where she reveals quite a lot about her social adventures. "The photos are of me, typically drinking with friends, and I don't want future employers to see that," Szeto said.
She also plans to delete her dating stories and confessions of her fondness for bikinis and reading CliffsNotes of novels rather than the books.
"Every single person I know has a MySpace page. ... Everything is up there for everyone to see."
"Everyone" includes potential employers and career recruiters.
In fact, hiring experts say, employers are increasingly following what is posted on MySpace.com and other social networking sites as part of their screening process for job candidates.
Online social networking sites, including MySpace.com and the college-oriented Facebook.com, have attracted millions of people, including young professionals and college youths looking for their first jobs. Some post elaborate multimedia productions about their lives. The postings range from photos taken at parties or drinking with friends to recaps of dating life and vulgar musings about daily annoyances.
MySpace boasts 68 million members - one reason News Corp. recently acquired the site for $580 million. But as college students shop for interview suits and send out resumes for jobs after school, some are starting to consider how much their exposure on MySpace might come back to haunt them.
"Sometimes these sites are better than the resumes because we figure out what a person is really like," said Jeff Benjamin, interactive creative director with Crispin Porter + Bogusky, a Miami advertising agency whose clients include Volkswagen and Burger King.
"Will they fit into our culture? Are they funny? Witty? Are they knowledgeable? Passionate?"
Benjamin regularly checks whether a job applicant has a page on MySpace, Facebook, Friendster.com or YouTube.com, where people can post videos of themselves, friends and favorite TV commercials.
He has even had employees post open jobs at the firm on their MySpace pages, then recruit people who reply.
"I don't know if it's the best place to find investment bankers," Benjamin said. "But in our profession, you can use these sites to gauge a person's creativity."
Standard Screening Tool
More executives with hiring duties are starting to consider what people post on the Web worth taking a look at.
Almost 75 percent of recruiters surveyed recently by ExecuNet, of Norwalk, Conn., said they use Internet search engines as part of the process to uncover information about job candidates. More than 36 percent said they have eliminated candidates because of what they discovered about them on the Internet.
Among the reasons ExecuNet found candidates were eliminated as a result of online searches: misstated academic credentials and "weird personal habits."
Experts predict it will become common to use MySpace and similar sites as standard screening tools.
Erin Richey, a Tampa-based recruiter for financial services firm Teague Financial Group, said her company doesn't review MySpace pages as part of its hiring protocol, but she predicts such online searches will become routine in corporate America.
"The entire recruiting process is more Internet-based than it ever has been," Richey said.
"If you're recruiting someone and stumble across this, you have to wonder if things people put online will come back to haunt you as an employer, and do you want that person as part of your organization?"
Richey, who graduated last year from Florida State University, said she saw how MySpace pages played a role in electing leaders of her sorority when she was a student. She sees that process evolving into the corporate world.
Kforce Inc., a Tampa-based technical staffing company, hires about 50 college graduates a year for jobs and places them in client companies temporarily.
The company conducts criminal background checks, verifies academic credentials and would "absolutely" consider a MySpace page relevant if questionable information on the pages came to light, said Laurie McComb, a market manager for the scientific division of Kforce.
"It would depend on what it is" online, McComb said. "But we would not place someone who is doing something that the client would not approve of. So would it hurt their chances of finding a job? It might, absolutely."
Karen Armon, CEO and founder of the executive placement firm Alliance Resources LLC in Littleton, Colo., said she regularly conducts online searches, including on MySpace.com, as part of the screening process.
"I've seen things like photos of someone who does car racing in their other life, and I've seen executives express strong political positions," she said. Armon said some things people post online, such as strong political preferences, are cause for concern as she screens candidates.
Major companies won't acknowledge searching personal Web sites, Armon said, because federal law prohibits employers from considering such factors as race, which is obvious from photos posted online. But employers that do search don't contact applicants with anything questionable posted online, she said.
Anyone Can Find You
Federal and state laws prohibit a company from considering factors such as race, age or gender in a hiring decision, said Cathleen G. Bell, a labor lawyer with Carlton Fields in Tampa.
However, the law sets few limits on bosses glancing at an applicant's personal Web site if they find it because the site is considered a form of self-disclosure and thus in the public domain.
Examples of what some MySpace pages include:
A 22-year-old University of South Florida student listed as "Lauren" answered 100 questions on her MySpace profile, including "In the past month, have you been on drugs: YEAH."
A recent high school graduate, "Ashley," has a running countdown until she turns 21, the legal drinking age. Yet she has posted photos of her drinking with friends and the caption "very strong jello shots ... the faces explain it all."
"Sara B" posted photos on her MySpace page of a recent pool party.
"Why is that pool water brown?" she asks. "Those are my friends and all I have to say is that I will never ever look at hershey's syrup the same way again."
Michael Lear, a 27-year-old junior at the University of Tampa, said his fraternity recently organized a seminar on job hunting. Alumni who attended the event told them to knock off any online antics.
"There was nothing really terrible on my site," Lear said. "But I got that warning two weeks ago, and I went right to the site and looked it over to make sure there was nothing that could hurt me."
Tone It Down
Sites such as MySpace don't require a last name or authentic name to register, but job search experts say employers are becoming more sophisticated in piecing together bits of information posted on the personal sites - such as hometown, college degree and photographs - to identify an applicant.
"We're warning students that these sites about themselves can become a criteria for hiring. Anyone has access to them, even recruiters," said Tim Harding, director of career services at the University of Tampa, who has started coaching students to tone down their MySpace and Facebook entries.
"You may have had a good time last weekend. But is it a good idea to have a picture of yourself passed out drunk on the floor on your Web site? Is that the message you want to send?"
Harried employers with thousands of applicants for a job first look for a reason not to hire an applicant, and an unflattering or inappropriate online photo or video can make the decision easy, Harding said. Students may never get a call back after sending a resume and never know their Web sites doomed their prospects.
Talking students out of their Web sites can be tough, however, because today's college students grew up in a digital age.
Social networking sites such as MySpace and a slew of lesser-known sites have become one of the most popular ways for college students to stay in touch with high school friends scattered across the country.
When questioned about the sites, Harding said they often retort, "Don't I have any privacy?"
Said Bell, the labor lawyer: "Anything out on the Internet is fair game. You may think it's cute, but if you're going to go get a job, would you show up for the interview in a ripped T-shirt and cut-off jeans?"
ONLINE ETIQUETTE
Professional recruiters and job placement counselors say college graduates and others on the job hunt should be careful about what they post online. Here are some tips:
•Don't post photos or descriptions of yourself involved in illegal activity, such as drug use, underage drinking or violence.
•Don't post political or religious opinions or preferences.
•If you include information about degrees, accreditations or other credentials, be sure they are accurate.
•Don't post photos, stories or Internet links you wouldn't want a potential boss seeing.
•Don't post your age or your marital or parental status. Although federal and state laws protect against discriminating based on those factors, the protection could erode after self-disclosure in a public forum.
•Be careful what you name a personal Web page. Names such as "partyallday" could raise eyebrows with potential employers.
•Consider limiting access to personal Web pages to a tight circle of family and friends.