I recently attended a Young Professional's Network event in Chicago. The workshop focused on helping young professionals display proper professional conduct in the workplace.
A large segment of the worksphop dealt with the recent phenomenon of social networking sites and their effect on the workplace. The speaker, Sarah Laggos of DePaul University, noted that companies are increasingly paying attention to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Survey results revealed at the workshop showed that almost all young professionals use at least one of these sites, with many using multiple ones. Clearly they play an important role in both the social and professional lives of young professionals. But do these sites have a downside to them?
Ms. Laggos made a point of advising the audience at the workshop to be careful in using social networking sites. Before hiring a candidate, many companies search them out on the internet to get a better picture of exactly who they may be hiring. Pictures, friends, and status updates are all thoroughly searched.
During the workshop, an audience member from Ketchum PR Firm noted how his company had been in damage control after a top executive made some less than flattering comments about the city of Memphis on his twitter account. A simple status update caused negative publicity for the entire company.
Social networking sites have great social and professional benefits, but can also hurt young professionals if they have loads of objectionable material on them. So before you start sending out resumes, do yourself a favor remove those pictures of you partying it up at a local DeKalb hotspot.
-Tim Michigan
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When thinking about how important it is to keep a good "rep" on social networks it is interesting the hypocrisy that it creates. Obviously it is important to keep up with facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. But, at what cost? Even if all of your sites are clean and in good standing you are still giving up in some cases very personal information.
The moral of this story is that you obviously must be leaving some sort of influence on any one of these social sites, but like Stevie said you have to be very careful. Watch how much information you disclose, and if you do disclose any be vague. Be specific when blogging about an important topic but leave out personal opinion about matters that don't pertain. Better safe than sorry, and better with a job than without one. Be careful blogging and be careful of the content in which you leave for the world to be critical of.
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