ON THE RECORD

April spent two months interviewing for her dream job as an events manager with a top- notch public relations firm in New York. After an almost flawless job search she knew she was about to receive a formal job offer.

When she called the Career Development Center, we were all confident that we would hear the joy in her voice, but her voice foretold a different circumstance. She did not get the offer. Her disappointment and shock in losing this opportunity was heart-rending. What went wrong?

Subsequent research into her candidacy revealed that her own digital dirt did her in. In the final stage of reference checking, the hiring firm conducted a search of all the popular social networking sites and search engines. The comments found about April’s presumed behavior at some recent parties put an end to her job candidacy.

Think this could not happen to you or any of your friends? Think again.

Recent surveys by big organizations all indicate a growing trend by corporate recruiters, school systems, government agencies and non-profit organizations to use social networking sites to both find talent and eliminate talent. In a recent poll conducted by Execunet, a job search and career management firm for executives, 83.2 percent of recruiters admitted to using online search engines in 2007 to uncover information about candidates.

Of these recruiters, 43 percent admitted to eliminating candidates based on the negative information they found.

Do you believe that you have chosen ample privacy settings to protect you from corporate snooping? Do not be so na’ve. As quickly as privacy settings are being developed, ways around these settings are also being created.

What is a job hunter to do? Stop using social networking sites? Not at all. Clean your digital dirt? Yes. My colleagues and I in the Career Development Center want to encourage you to begin cleaning your digital dirt now. How can you do this? Start with the acid test: are you prepared for your parents to Google you, surf Facebook or MySpace and watch your latest YouTube performance?

Even if the information and pictures you posted yourself are appropriate, especially for those of you in the creative arts, are you aware of and comfortable with the comments friends have attached to you?

If your answer is negative to any of these questions, it is time to clean up your digital dirt. Do your best to remove questionable material, and ask your friends who have posted information about you to do the same.

Do this weekly. We recommend that Mondays be “de-tag and eliminate Mondays.” Protect yourself from this day forward. Think twice about what you post to social networking sites.

There are no privacy laws on the Internet, so you must protect your future professional image. Be discreet and be vigilant.

Start now to think of your Facebook pages and entries on other social networking sites as your professional portfolio. Be sure what appears is the type of information that future employers will find value-added not questionable.

Remove off-colored jokes, racy photos, testimonials about drug or alcohol-related behavior, radical political views and any and all negative comments about professors and/or former employers.

Despite these warnings, we are not encouraging you to give up your use of social networking sites. In fact, just the opposite is true.

Use Facebook to connect with employers who are also using that medium, such as Teach for America. Add “Linked In” to your set of tools to network in industry specific arenas.

Become a frequent user of Employola and the Loyola-branded CareerBeam site to connect with potential employers, industry experts and Loyola alumni in far off places to build your professional network. Use the technology to your advantage; do not let it use you.

Roberta Kaskel is the director for the Career Development Center. She can be reached at [email protected].