Survey: Your online profile could get – or lose – you that new job

SAN FRANCISCO
November 28, 2006 10:26am

Nearly half of employers feel that information posted on social networking sites should be taken into consideration when making hiring decisions, according to a recent survey of more than 750 employers and college students conducted by AfterCollege Inc. of San Francisco, a career network specializing in recruitment at the college level.

Nearly 40 percent of employers conduct Web searches to gain insight about prospective new hires, and 37 percent say that if they discover something questionable about a prospective new hire they would not offer them the job.

However, nearly 50 percent would still offer them the job, but would "keep an eye on them," according to the survey

Other highlights of the survey include:

• Of employers who investigate potential new hires, most look to MySpace first for information and then to FaceBook second. However, of the 80 percent of students who do post on social networking sites, the majority post on FaceBook first and then MySpace.

• Over 25 percent of students who post on social networking sites have posted questionable information or pictures.

• In light of the current employment issues surrounding social networking sites, nearly 32 percent of students have stopped posting information that they would otherwise post.

• Of those employers who do investigate potential new hires, nearly 40 percent draw the line at hard drug activity such as cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin and would not extend a job offer if it was discovered that a potential new hire was engaging in this type of drug activity.

• However, only 3.3 percent of employers draw the line at nudity, while 4.1 percent and 14.7 percent draw the line at heavy drinking and smoking marijuana respectively.

"It's interesting that nearly 40 percent of employers conduct web searches before extending job offers, while only 12.5 percent say they have investigated potential hires on social networking sites," says Roberto Angulo, CEO of AfterCollege. "This may be attributed to the difficulty involved in accessing information on social networking sites, as opposed to simply looking someone up on a search engine. The effort involved in accessing some of these sites is quite time-consuming because most require an invitation to join a specific group.”