The other day on the radio, they were talking about how employers use Facebook/Myspace as a means of researching potential employees.  I personally have nothing to hide, and I keep my facebook private, but even so, I still find this to be out of line. Although there may be some legit things they find wrong, they shouldn't judge a person by their facebook.  The way people act around friends is not necessarily the way they will act at work. 

The stories report that employers are looking for things like:

• Comments or photos of drugs/drinking
• Bad pictures of oneself
• Bad spelling/grammer ???? what??
• bad-mouthing a previous employer
• having an unprofessional screen name

Ok, first of all I know some people are reallllly dumb, but do you know how many people out there will openly joke about doing drugs and drinking who don't actually do drugs or drink?  It's like some stupid internet cultural thing that happened but joking about drugs and drinking is now something these kids consider funny.  So if you see this on myspace, should it be the reason NOT to hire them when you don't have any other proof of this? 

While I agree with some of the things they check for, others I think are ridiculous.  I wouldn't want to hire someone who posts slutty pictures of themselves all over their website, but having bad spelling/grammer on a free website does not mean I can't type a professional email.

In conclusion: I don't do anything wrong online that I would feel the need to hide, yet I still feel it's none of their business to try and see what's on my facebook.  Everyone's gotta learn to make their profiles on these type of sites private.  There is no need for the world to see conversations between you and your buds.

I found there are actually quite a few articles about this online if you want to look.  Share your thoughts....