Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
(OP)
I have heard of employers who will perform searches on social networking pages to try and gain some in-sight on prospective employees.
PRO's
A well constructed and maintained social networking page gives the impression that the prospective employee has good people skills which is a very important attribute which employers look for.
CON's
Damaging or mis-leading personal information can be leaked which may make a potential employer less likely to hire the prospective employee.
QUESTION
Do employers regularly screen social networking sites before interviewing potential employees and should one be maintained with accurate personal information (name and location) to try and help gain future employment.
PRO's
A well constructed and maintained social networking page gives the impression that the prospective employee has good people skills which is a very important attribute which employers look for.
CON's
Damaging or mis-leading personal information can be leaked which may make a potential employer less likely to hire the prospective employee.
QUESTION
Do employers regularly screen social networking sites before interviewing potential employees and should one be maintained with accurate personal information (name and location) to try and help gain future employment.





RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
1. Don't burn your bridges;
2. Use your network(s), whatever they are.
3. Never lie. Maintain your personal and professional integrity at all times.
4. In spite of what others tell you to do, just be yourself. If you do otherwise, eventually the truth will come out and you will have to deal with it.
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
With respect to your points made, in my case:
(1) oops...
(2) hopefully my networks are waterproof...see #1...
(3) my integrity is intact, but I navigate by boat whenever I need to cross bodies of water...see #2 and #1...
(4) that's my life-preserver, so to speak...
Star for you...perfect post that nails it and hits close to home.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
corus
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
In that environment, you usually divulge more about yourself than any employer needs to know. Even a seemingly innocent well wisher can give you job problems...example: "Glad to see you're up and around after that little back problem last week" or "With 4 kids, how do you have time to go fishing?"...red flags to potential employer.
Follow Mike's advice...it's good.
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
- Steve
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
- Steve
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Corus,
Hope things down in your corner of the British steel industry are faring a bit better than up here. It's gonna be a tough Christmas for the boys and girls at Lackenby and Redcar.
----------------------------------
If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services
www.infotechpr.net
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
CDG, Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading in the Los Angeles area
http://www.CivilDevelopmentGroup.com
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Cheers
Greg Locock
I rarely exceed 1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
To use the British/Oz terminology, has something to do with smooching the arse?
Cheers and Merry Christmas.
Ron
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Personally, I try to keep my identity as secret as possible because I have no doubt that public postings will work against me one day.
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
In my opinion, FB is great for personal relationships. If some of those are at work as well, then so be it. Those are your friends. I would not open my FB to any employer, or to the public. There is no reason they need to see how I interact with my friends, which is not professional, and is not intended to be.
As an example from last night: My boss does not need to know my friend found out her 13 year old son was surfing porn on the web, an had an excuse that the pictures were on the computer because they just popped up. Nor does he need to know that I told her her son needed some better sites without pop-ups :). All in jest to help her deal with the situation.
Am I really worried that a "non-friend" at work might find out I have said "inappropriate" things, complained about my job, support gay rights, that I am a liberal (as if the boss didn't know that one already), that I do not feel 100% some morning because of too much wine the night before, etc.? No, but I am not going to open that up to just anyone either.
I guess the point is that if you want to let anyone see it, you have to moderate it, and yourself. I do not moderate myself, but I moderate my appearance to fit my work, and that is generally separate from social. Therefore, no access to my social side to my employer. No one at my current employer is a friend on FB yet, because I do not know them that well.
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that they like it
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Facebook...it depends on how different your work and private personas are. Me, the worst they'll find out is that I have lefty politics and a foul mouth, and they'll find that out in real life soon enough anyway. I suppose if I had a lot of friends who thought it was funny to post porn to my wall, I'd have to rethink things, but I don't.
If you party heavy on the weekends and like to brag about it on FB while still maintaining a quiet conservative image at work, then you will want to keep your FB page private. If you are a "fan" of pages that would reveal information about you that you really don't want others to know about (say, a gay rights group when you work in a very conservative homophobic environment), you'll definitely want to remove your profile from search results, since thanks to FB's new "privacy" settings those are visible to the whole world.
The new settings that let you hide specific posts from specific people are very handy. You can make a "work people" group who by default can't see what you post unless you specifically allow it.
I have a couple friends who have created dual FB pages, one for work (say, "Joseph J. Smith") and one for real ("Joe Smith"). (Some women have an advantage in this department in that they can use married & maiden names and really keep things separate.) The real page is hidden from searches and has very strict privacy settings--and no employer information, and no identifying profile photo in case someone does stumble across it. The work page is public. That way anyone searching for them will find the public page that doesn't have very much on it, and if whoever finds them is someone they want to let into their personal life, they'll connect them to the "real" page.
Don't link the two pages by friending yourself, because your unsavory friends will find your public profile, and your work buddies will find your unsavory profile. Also remember to post stuff to the public profile once in a while to keep up the illusion that that's really your profile.
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
As the wise Lionel Hutz told Marge Simpson, there's such a thing as the truth (head nodding "yes"), and the truth (head nodding "no"). Of course there's that wonderful Indian ambiguous yes/no head wobble, which is always good!
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Nothing is 100% secure, but the sock puppet is a good start. If you're really paranoid, you can keep an eye out for co-workers on your friends' friend lists (or pre-emptively search for them) and block them from your home profile before they get a chance to find you. (Or after, but then at least they won't find you again and they won't be entirely sure it was really you.)
I don't do any of this. But I have a friend who is accountant by day, accordion player by night, and another who is lawyer by day, human by night, and they do some or all of the above.
But the original post was also wondering if there was a plus side. Dunno, other than LinkedIn, I'm not seeing social networking as a career helper. AISC has had some seminars on social networking for work purposes, and I just don't know about that. I've had people add me as a "friend" and then proceed to spam me with whatever their cottage industry is, and it's just irritating. If you run your own business, you can make a business page on FB, but in the world of engineering I don't think that's a very efficient way to drum up business.
And having a presence on FB just to show that no, really, you *do* have social relationships, that sounds pretty desperate. Not to mention that an employer who really relies on that is an idiot. There are people who collect friends by trying to connect to everyone they come across whether they know them or not, so number of friends doesn't mean anything. And are they really going to carefully analyze your wall to see just how deep your relationships with those connections are? And if what's visible publicly is too deep, then you run the risk of looking like you have poor discretion.
I can't see starting a Facebook page just to show potential employers you're well-adjusted. But if you have one, you do need to think about what you do or don't want your present and future employers to see.
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
If I was working for someone else I would maybe be a little more hesitant to let other people I work with see certain things. Especially if you are friends with someone higher up than your own position. Even if drinking is normal, I still feel it's a taboo to let those higher up know you drink. That seems to be a big concern with a lot of people I know.
CDG, Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading
http://www.CivilDevelopmentGroup.com
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Here's what AISC was doing:
http://www.relationshipeconomics.net/AISC.html
Looks to me like "how to spam your friends for fun and profit", but I didn't spend $97 to verify that assumption.
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
http://www
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
I have found that they can be a valuable asset if used properly. Don't post content that would keep you from getting a job.
http://engineerhumor.tumblr.com/
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
eng-tips!
Facebook, Twitter, and the others just give me the creeps.
Could be due to my anti-social nature, though...
tg
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
I wouldn't call E-T a social networking site, though, just a discussion forum. There are no networks here, and anonymity is encouraged.
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
It would be interesting to have a subforum here for different regions for general discussions of codes and projects.
I wonder if it's useful to get people's facebook pages from here.
CDG, Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading
http://cdg-ca.com
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
CDG, Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading
http://cdg-ca.com
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Does maintaining a social networking page help me gain employment
I am not sure either, I'm just saying what I heard. The jist of it was that that information isn't relevant to the employer, so they shouldn't need to look at it.
I suppose you could consider that an employer using the information on a social networking site is the same as if they asked you about your personal information during an interview (religion, family status, etc...) and used that information to exclude you from a position.
Yes, putting that information on social networking sites is putting it in a more public area, but if you really wanted to, you could probably find that information out about someone anyways, we all leave trails on the internet now. If an employer somehow searched through your medical records to find some of this information, would that be alright? Is it more acceptable just because the information is now easier to access?
Now, do I put out any information I think could be construed in the wrong way by any potential or current employer? Of course not. There's always the difference between what should be, and what is.