According to a recent Varsity article, politicians like Michael Ignatieff are now using Facebook to get their messages out. But it seems like they are not the only ones jumping on the networking bandwagon. While you may still be safe in the knowledge that your Luddite parents cannot see the results of last night’s ten pitchers, your potential employer can.
Recent reports indicate that social networking sites are now being used for employee-screening purposes. To call this situation unsettling would be an understatement of significant proportion, particularly since Facebook is supposed to be a “university-only” space. It seems that blogging, wall-posting, and uploading photos and video clips-staples of the creative revolution meant to be private expressions of personality-are, in fact, not so private. By unreservedly sharing oneself online, the different faces one presents to the outside world can suddenly be cross-referenced against an electronic one.
A friend of mine on Facebook lists “smokin’ blunts wit da homies” as one of his activities and names “Tits of Fury, Moulin Splooge and Shaving Ryan’s Privates” as his favourite films. While I know he’s posturing, a profile like that is clearly not going to do him any favours in the job market.
Similarly, many of the photos and postings on the website relate to drunken and disorderly behaviour. The university lifestyle being what it is, how you managed to find your way home from that Hallowe’en party on your broomstick becomes a hotly debated issue. Can there be a better way than online posting to document the best years of your life, from frosh week to finals? Sex, clicks and rock’n’roll. This is all potential dirt, though, that could come back to haunt you next Hallowe’en.
The Career Centre at U of T has even suggested that students clean up their Facebook profiles. Yet surely this need for self-censorship denies students and workers the right to self-expression when they are not (yet) on the company clock. In an age when self-fashioning is closely tied to a person’s online profile, “cleaning it up” becomes an encroachment of one’s liberties. Moreover, self-censoring one’s online personality goes against the very purpose of the social networking websites.
There is no obvious solution to this issue. The recent rumours about Facebook being bought by big conglomerates serve as a reminder that these sites are owned by the same business interests that recruit young graduates. This conflict of interest means that the only viable way to maintain one’s online integrity is to boycott Facebook, but that won’t happen anytime soon. Indeed, there were plans for mass defection in September after the introduction of ‘The News Feed,’ which enabled users to easily pry into the activities of those in their online circle. Two months later, rather than abandoned, Facebook is in fact more popular than ever.
As a frequent “Facebooker,” I have thought about this problem a great deal. Frustratingly, I can also see it from the standpoint of the employers in an increasingly competitive job market.
So my defeatist suggestion to you is as follows: rather than shying away from the internet, consider Facebook and all your online activity an opportunity to practice “employment judo.” Just as politicians are using Facebook in their campaigns, so we must post some of our qualifications chosen from a CV for employers to find.
In the end, I have to be prepared to take responsibility for what I upload: every interest I pursue, every photo I am (or am not) privy to, every article I write, and every stance I take. Of course, I’d like to think that when applying for work I’d be judged not on attitude but aptitude, but that seems unlikely in the internet age.
