• by Amanda , June 22, 2007

In reading articles/blogs last week, I noticed a lot of talk about Facebook in the professional world. Being completely embedded in undergraduate academia, this was news to me—but very, very cool. See, everything I hear about breaking into the “real world” is that you should delete Facebook/MySpace pages immediately or the contents therein will be scrutinized by a team of admissions/HR people, you will never get your dream job and be miserable for the rest of your life. As someone who is getting ready to be that little fish in the big pond, I would be interested to hear what you guys think…

There are two sides to this argument:

I can see the logic behind removing any/all information from these social networks. A quick glance through profiles will easily offer pictures, quotes, interests which should be edited before any employer sees the contents. For me, I guess I’ve always assumed that the second I start applying for law school, my fairly substantial profile will be “reinvented”…

Favorite Books: Sandra Day O’Connor’s biography
Interests: justice, peace and a more consistent patent review process
Favorite movies: The Paper Chase, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
… and so on …

BUT, these networks are so common (even more so than I realized) that it might seem suspicious not to have one. Literally, every student I personally know has Facebook. The depth of their profile and the time spent there varies, but it would be weird not to be apart of this network. Not to mention that this is the perfect space to show a little bit of one’s personality outside of the workplace, something which might set you apart from the other thousands of applications.

So, for you professionals out there, do you guys really care about our profiles? Could our favorite movie get us a job? Because these profiles are so common, will it look suspicious if we don't have a profile? And, if we do delete ourselves from the web space, will we inevitably rejoin once we're safely hired?