Great Interview + Bad Facebook Profile = NOT HIRED!

After getting past the resume and interview stages some employers are not hiring potential employees because of their online social media profiles. Although this is not common practice, viewing someone’s Facebook, MySpace, YouTube or Twitter account is quite easy - and some employers are definitely taking advantage of this fact.

With more companies promoting themselves through social media, the professional and personal lines are being blurred. Granted there are ways to increase security on your accounts, you still have to be mindful of the content you choose to post. The pictures of you, from your wild partying days, might come back to haunt you ... especially in today’s competitive job market.

The city of Bozeman, Montana, took this practice one step further and asked potential employees to sign a background check waiver and submit all usernames and passwords to all social networking sites.

An excerpt from the background waiver is listed below:

"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.,"

After a community uproar, the practice was suspended last Friday June 19, 2009! read more.

The Internet can be an open book so remember that potential employers could be doing more than just calling your references.