How Can Social Networking Websites Hurt a Job Search?
Many users of MySpace and Facebook tend to let their guard down when posting photos, messages and other content on the internet. Unfortunately, public MySpace pages and even profile photos for Facebook can be damaging to an employer’s impression of a job candidate. Career counselor and former headhunter Jackie Connolly explained, “Your Facebook or MySpace pages will be some of the first things [potential employers] see since these social networking sites have such high page ranks, meaning they’ll appear at the very top of search engine results. “What if your MySpace page has pictures posted from your wild birthday party? A prospective employer doesn’t know you as a person, they don’t know when the photo was taken – they’re going by first impressions. And there’s a good chance that this first impression will be less than accurate if they visit a MySpace page.” The risk of losing a job opportunity due to a MySpace page or Facebook profile photo is much greater if the job hunter found the
