Job Hunting 101: Be Careful Who Your Facebook Friends Are

Most of you reading this have a Facebook page. I have a Facebook page. I was kind of late to the Facebook game and didn’t join until about 2009. When I joined Facebook, a lot of my friends from work at my law firm invited me to be “friends.” Why not, right? They were my work friends. And I continued to accept friend requests from a lot of different folks.

Then I started to notice that work friends were posting about work on Facebook. And not always, let’s say, the most positive things about work. And many of our supervising attorneys (who were also friends of ours) were on Facebook as well. And they were reading these Facebook posts and commenting on them. How do you think that went over with our supervisors?

Facebook is a funny thing. We put information about our lives on our time line but we often don’t think about who is reading it (that is, unless your parents or in-laws are also on Facebook).

Yet many people think about Facebook as a tool for networking. I myself have sent out many a post starting with “Hey, do you know anyone who …” and got back really great replies and contacts.  But to be honest, I think carefully about what I post on Facebook—and I also think carefully about who my friends are on Facebook.

For example, if you meet me at a conference and send me a Facebook friend request, I likely will not accept. It is nothing personal, I promise. But Facebook for me is a social network of my friends—people I know in other than a professional way. That is because I post pictures of my cat, wedding, and family holidays on there. Do you really want to see that if you are a professional connection?

Now contrast this with LinkedIn. If you send me a LinkedIn request, I will say yes. That is mainly because I see LinkedIn as my professional network. And I love expanding my professional network. This is one of the ways that I separate my social media platforms, one I hold a bit close to the vest and the other I am more open with. Make sense?

So think about your friends on Facebook and what you post. Do you want your boss or professional connection to see those posts? Is that the image you want to portray to potential employers? I encourage you to be thoughtful about whom you are communicating with on social media and be aware that your posts can be easily shared with others, even someone you don’t want to share your personal life with!

Want some Facebook tips? Check out our Social Media How-To: Facebook.

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Here’s all of Job Hunting 101:

• Job Hunting 101: It’s Not All About You
• Job Hunting 101: Project a Consistent Image
• Job Hunting 101: Don’t Neglect Your Headshot
• Job Hunting 101: What Makes You Unique?
• Job Hunting 101: Google Yourself
• Job Hunting 101: Did You Know Your Law School May Pay for Conferences?
• Job Hunting 101: Get Out and Meet People
• Job Hunting 101: Be Careful Who Your Facebook Friends Are
• Job Hunting 101: Follow Up

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Image by obyvatel via stock.xchng.