Nicki Tyska

Students seeking job opportunities do not have to live in fear of the discovery of their Facebook profiles by possible employers. However, they do need to be on their guard.

As a social networking site for college students, Facebook has become all the rage. Many rumors have been flying around about employers looking students up to view their profiles during the hiring process, and if profiles need to be cleaned up or deleted altogether when users are applying for jobs.

According to www.CollegeRecruiter.com, a survey done by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found more than one in 10 employers, or 11.1 percent, said they had plans to review profiles on social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace when considering candidates for jobs.

This statistic might seem worrisome at first, but Kristi Mackay, program coordinator for the Office of Career and Community Services, said she has been speaking to recruiters about Facebook and has yet to meet one who actually uses the site to make decisions on whether or not to hire someone.

Mackay also gave a little spark of hope for those on Facebook who may be worried about who sees the content of their profiles. A number of employers in general feel using Facebook as a hiring tool would be discriminatory.

“Some companies have policies against using that information, while some recruiters might say (they) go on and look at it, but (they) don’t use anything (they) find there,” she said.

Senior Nicole Monte, who is currently a full-time student teacher at Memorial Elementary School in McMinnville, said she was told some personnel offices feel it would be unfair to look into her personal life by searching her Facebook profile. However, she was advised to keep her profile private.

“If it’s private, I feel like I have nothing to worry about,” Monte said. “I made sure everything was (set on) ‘friends only.’ If you keep it classy, you don’t necessarily need to have it private.”

As future teachers, it might seem as if  education majors are more at risk for searches into their profiles, but        Monte said Facebook has never come up in any of her education classes, nor has  any guest speaker from schools in McMinnville broached the subject.

Dan Fergueson, director of college activities and student government adviser, said he thinks most students need to be concerned about businesses with high-quality reputations and images to protect.

 He said students who are representatives of the college, such as student government leaders, need to be aware of the content of their profiles as well.

“Truthfully, since (Facebook) originated, I think students have gotten a lot better with thinking about their digital profile,” Fergueson said. “In Facebook’s early stages, you’d see a lot of pictures and say ‘that person should not be putting that picture up.’”

Occasionally, Fergueson said he peruses the profiles of those students in ASLC Cabinet to make sure they are representing themselves well. In the early years of Facebook, he said he gave small warnings to those who had risky photos. Now, he does not see quite as many.

Fergueson, Monte and Mackay all agreed the main factors students need to stay aware of are the security and content of their information.

“Set up your security and watch out for who you add as friends who can see your full profile,” Mackay said. “I would even encourage students to set up a Yahoo! account and go on Facebook and try to look at their profiles as an outsider would see it. If it’s on the Web, it’s out there for the world.”