The advent of the Internet has increased effectiveness and efficiency on so many levels.

        Do you even remember a time when you had to visit your local library to comb through microfiche for sources to use on school or professional projects? It wasn’t all that long ago. But now, all one has to do is simply search, click and find a wealth of information and resources, all right there from the comfort of home or office.

A new twist on a standard practice
It is with this in mind that professionals should not be surprised to find that hiring managers are taking this concept to the next level. Recent research has found that many organizations are using the information they can uncover about prospective candidates on social sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Xanga and Friendster as somewhat of a reference source.

        The New York Times covered this topic just as MySpace was registering its 100 millionth account.
        In the article titled “For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Résumé,” author Alan Finder writes: “Many companies that recruit on college campuses have been using search engines like Google and Yahoo to conduct background checks on seniors looking for their first job. But now, college career counselors and other experts say, some recruiters are looking up applicants on social-networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Xanga and Friendster, where college students often post risqué or teasing photographs and provocative comments about drinking, recreational drug use and sexual exploits in what some mistakenly believe is relative privacy.”

Why Use Social Sites?
Corporate culture is defined as the attitudes, beliefs, values and experiences that comprise an organization’s “personality.”  Authors Hill and Jones discuss culture in their book, “Strategic Management,” in which they say that corporate culture is “the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization”
        It is these values and norms which shape the way people act, react and make decisions.

        Organizations rely very heavily on the impact these commonalities within the employee base have on effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. The interview process itself has evolved to encompass questions that will dig deep and uncover some of these beliefs and values in candidates so that organizations can determine whether there is an alignment.

        Hiring managers are simply taking this process one step further by visiting the pages built by their prospective employees to get a glimpse of how they represent themselves to the public. If the perception is bad, it’s no wonder that a reputable organization would have doubts about hiring such an individual who might also represent himself or herself in the same manner while on the job.

Implications for Candidates
Aside from kicking up some legal dirt, this practice doesn’t really seem to be shocking too many professionals. It’s simply one more aspect of fact checking that organizations are employing.
        According to The Ranger Online, a Texas-based informational site, “With so many students having an account with MySpace.com these days, it is not hard to see why employers are logging onto the popular social-networking website to check out potential employees’ pages.”

        For job candidates, the implications of such a practice are simple: You post it out there for the public to see, and they are going to find it. If you have anything that is questionable in nature that you would not want a prospective employer to see, then it is wise to rethink your social site approach and only post information that would make your great-grandmother proud.

Orrick Nepomuceno, CPC, is a managing partner of executive recruitment firm KAON Consulting and author of “Hitchhiker In the Corner Office: Avoiding The Top-10 Potholes So Your Employees Don’t Hit The Road.”  With nearly 20 years of experience in the restaurant, foodservice and hopitality industries, Orrick consults executives and companies in recruiting, hiring and retaining human capital for their organizations. Visit the Restaurant and Foodservice Blog to read more of Orrick’s blog relating to the restaurant industry.

“For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Resume,” by Alan Finder, New York Times, June 11, 2006
, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/us/11recruit.html?ei=5090

Charles W. L. Hill, and Gareth R. Jones, (2001) Strategic Management. Houghton Mifflin

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