Public Facebook profiles: Good, bad or dangerous?

March 18, 8:42 AMEntry Level Careers ExaminerHeather Huhman

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Facebook recently gave users the option to “make your profile and any of your content available to everyone on Facebook.” As opposed to LinkedIn, a popular professional networking site, Facebook has largely been used for social purposes until now. But, does this new option have implications—positive or negative—for your internship or entry-level job search? It depends on who you ask.

Good

A majority of experts feel this is a good opportunity for candidates. Personally, I tend to agree—assuming you exercise control over what’s on your profile.

“It can be a very good thing—if the candidate with the Facebook profile realizes that their Facebook profile will be found by hiring managers who are using Internet searches as part of the hiring process and that they therefore need to consider their Facebook profile as an extension of their résumé,” said Anne P. Mitchell, Esq., CEO and president of the Institute for Social Internet Public Policy.

With this in mind, says Mitchell, a public Facebook profile can be very good for internship and entry-level job candidates:

1. Put your best “face” forward. The savvy job hunter will recognize that a public Facebook profile is their opportunity to put their best face forward, and to show the hiring manager those qualities and aspects that a plain paper or digital résumé submission can't.

2. More depth than a regular résumé. A public Facebook profile allows the candidate to provide a media-rich introduction to the candidate before a phone or face-to-face interview ever takes place. Photos and even videos can introduce the hiring manager to the candidate and subtly suggest why the candidate is qualified and the best for the job. Images of the candidate in professional clothing and professional settings, videos of the candidate giving a talk or performing a professional service, etc. can all help to convince a hiring manager that the candidate is one who should be considered seriously as a future employee.

3. Writing on the wall. The candidate can also let family, friends, previous colleagues—even previous managers with whom they have a good relationship—know that they are gearing their Facebook profile towards potential employers, and invite comments on their profile (such as on the "wall") that address the candidate's aptitude, can-do attitude, volunteerism and even just their good nature. "We really miss you around the office, you were always so positive and cheery" or "You were one of my best employees, you can come back and work for me any time" on a Facebook profile is likely to really catch the eye of a hiring manager. A hiring manager who views such images and reads such remarks is quite likely to be positively pre-disposed towards the candidate when reviewing their application and during the hiring process.

Social media consultant Arleen Cauchi adds, “Depending on the company you are applying to, it may be important to them that you understand and use social media.”

Mike Volpe, vice president of inbound marketing at HubSpot, goes one step further. “If you make your profile private, people often assume the worst and think you have a lot to hide, so a private profile puts you at a disadvantage. You are competing against other candidates who have clean public profiles and show off what a great candidate they are, and it is hard to compete unless you also make your profile public.”

Bad

Niki Fielding, president of Jump Start Social Media, believes no one should make their full Facebook profile available to everyone. “The idea behind Facebook is to be able to share yourself with friends, family and in some cases, business colleagues. The site has evolved into a wonderful place to help potential employers, industry colleagues and other business connections to get to know you, but there is a difference between the persona that you are comfortable sharing with those who already ‘know’ you and those who have not yet formed an opinion.”

Fielding provided tips for maximizing your Facebook profile—without making it completely public:

1. Facebook makes it very simple to control what people see when searching for someone on the site. For job searchers, it’s foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity to proactively configure your Facebook presence so that it makes the right impression when hiring managers search Facebook to see what they find. Leaving the content open to everyone shows a lack of concern about professional image, which is something that makes hiring managers understandably nervous, particularly when hiring interns or entry-level candidates from younger generations that have already proven at times to have a lack of tact when posting information online.

2. First impressions are by nature one-shot deals. On Facebook, privacy settings should be configured so that search result content includes only the profile picture (to identify you, specifically, if you have a common name), a link to add the user as a friend, a link to send the user a message and, if desired, access to the user’s friends list. A professional headshot is a must and should be set as the default profile photo at all times, particularly when someone is looking for a new job. Access to actual profile information should, ideally, be restricted. 

3. Make sure your content is “business appropriate.” If a candidate is using Facebook and doesn’t want his or her profile to be set to “friends” only, the content should be set up so only business appropriate information is visible to Facebook users outside of the person’s connections. Wall activity, status updates, links posted, photos and videos tagged, and personal information should all be set to friends-only. Basic information, education and work history can all be publicly visible. Ensure that all of the details entered in the work and education sections are accurate and that all dates and job titles match up to your résumé.

4. Be careful with photos. Photo albums should be utilized so that any photos that do not fall into the category of “business appropriate” can be set as visible only to friends, or certain pre-created lists of friends. Facebook’s Friend Lists feature makes it very easy to categorize connections into groups who should and should not view certain content.

Jason M. Hill, MBA, managing partner at Sound Advice Consulting Services, agrees. “While Facebook and MySpace are good for social networking, they are not appropriate venues for public information sharing, especially when it comes to your career and prospective employers. However, professional networking sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo are excellent vehicles to help young job seekers build their professional online presence and communicate with the professional world.”

Dangerous

Kirk Sullivan, public relations and marketing director at Stearns, believes Facebook can also be dangerous to a candidate. “I was in the process of helping a very talented and lovely young lady find an internship with a top PR firm. She had a 4.0 GPA, was an outstanding writer—and she was charming and an excellent team leader. She was exactly the type of kid who could get placed in a good internship and turn it into a career track position.”

“After I'd sent her information to several friends at some great PR firms,” he continued, “my wife pointed out to me the latest update to this young lady's Facebook page. It was a link to photos from her most recent college party—the theme ‘Who needs clothes!’ Needless to say, the young lady and I had a long discussion that afternoon about social media Web sites and the importance of maintaining a professional image in all of your information that is public access.”