Easten and Alex brought up a really good prompt this week in their lesson. Would I want my parents to see my Facebook right now? I guess my answer is pretty easy: Yes. I made my mom a Facebook because she asked me too. She's one of those over-protective parents and I know she uses it to keep track of me and I guess that keeps me in check on my online behavior.
I’m sure everyone has those inappropriate friends as I do and I am constantly messaging them with “Sorry, had to un-tag myself from your status because it does not reflect good upon me.” It worries me when I see people carelessly posting pictures from parties when they are under-aged and using inappropriate language on their Facebooks. I can’t say I’m a saint by any means but I take extra care making sure my Facebook is not only presentable for my mom but also future employers.
I never really took the time to “clean up” my online profiles until I attended a conference for Delta Sigma Pi. One of the sessions I attended focused just on online behavior. The presenter had a lot of great ideas including creating two profiles. One strickly personal use and having it hidden by using your middle name instead of your last or a nickname instead of your first. The second being for public view and professional networking. Employers don’t only look at your profile but will also look at your friend’s. You might thinking “Then don’t add the recruiter.” This makes sense but one of the most profound things I took from that session was him saying “if I add you on Facebook, you better add me if you want that job. If you don’t, I know you have something to add but adding me and not having a professional profile could also hurt you.” I think this is important to adopt now because I know my peer mentors added me on Facebook and I’m sure we’ll do the same to our students and what wouldn’t we want them to see?
When I was first told that employers look at Facebook profiles, I thought that person was wrong and no way the employer had time to look us up on facebook. Then one time when I was taking applications for a leadership role, I found myself looking up the applicants on Facebook. Needless to say, I showed to myself that employers are most likely looking us up on Facebook because it is so easy to do.
ReplyDeleteWow- that's interesting advice! Was fun to read your post- would like to talk with you more about this in-person!
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