Keep Your Facebook Profiles Clean to Improve Your Job Prospects

Facebook profiles do reveal quite a bit about attitude , lifestyle and personality and employers are out to tap this medium while shortlisting candidates.

Facebook profiles do reveal quite a bit about attitude , lifestyle and personality and employers are out to tap this medium while shortlisting candidates. Therefore, it makes sense to keep your facebook profiles clean.

This means any inappropriate Facebook profile, posts and photos could cost job candidates their next job.

Significant Increase In The Number Of Facebook Users in India
There has been a significant rise in the number of Facebook users in India, Korea and South Korea while there has been a decline in the U.S and Europe.

Vanessa A. de la Llama, Isabel Trueba, Carola Voges, Claudia Barreto and David J. Park of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Florida International University in North Miami, suggested that employers using Facebook to assess those applying for a job with them, are creating a new digital divide, as well as revealing how our freedoms with regard to virtual identity are being encroached upon increasingly by the world of work.

The researchers conducted an in-depth study of employers from six different industries.

"While employers are using Facebook to monitor their employees, they have also begun to use it as a screening tool when considering potential candidates," said de la Llama and colleagues, "Because this is a fairly new trend, a standardized set of guidelines has yet to be established, with employers often assessing job applicants in a subjective manner."

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The team interviewed representatives from the areas of information technology, healthcare and wellness, education, law enforcement, food and drink, travel, advertising and suggest that their findings shed light on a growing trend.

They hope to raise the ethical questions for debate surrounding whether or not employers should be using Facebook and perhaps other social networking sites to screen candidates. The question of whether employers are providing job candidates with equal opportunities if they are assessing online "image" prior to interviewing candidates must be raised. Of course, it is possible that one's Facebook activity is a perfectly acceptable window on to one's personality.

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Facebook was asked to provide proper information about its plan to allow children below the age of 13 years to create an account on the social networking site bu American lawmakers.

"Job seekers should be aware that their future employers are closely observing their Facebook profiles in search of a window into their personality," the team concluded.

"Though this practice raises many ethical issues, it is an emerging phenomenon that is not slowing," they added.

The findings will be published in the International Journal of Work Innovation this month.

Source-ANI