Facebook Might Actually Help Your Job Search

(Lincoln, NE) July 5, 2007 — Melissa Lee

New college grads: Thinking of deleting those Facebook and MySpace pages in hopes of landing a more professional job? You may want to reconsider. At least one expert says maintaining an online profile could be a smart idea for job-hunters — as long as they follow a few common-sense rules.

"The most important thing for people to realize is these are very powerful networking tools," said J.P. Sakey, CEO of Headway Corporate Resources, a Raleigh, N.C.-based company that provides recruitment services to businesses.

"It can share a lot of good information or a lot of inaccurate information quickly."

Bottom line, Sakey says: Don’t delete your profile just because you think potential employers will automatically discount you.

That’s unlikely, he says. Most employers are hip enough to know that social networking sites are popular, and twentysomethings aren’t going to give up online socializing anytime soon.

So wise up and use Facebook to your advantage.

For starters: Clean up your page so it’s professional, simple and reflective of who you are.

That means getting rid of pictures from last week’s party and eliminating "O Street" from your list of hobbies. Replace them with, say, a professional mug shot and a list of career goals.

"Inappropriate pictures, inappropriate comments about how cool you were in college, that does not help your career," Sakey said. "Certainly you want to highlight the achievements of your life."

What’s OK: Samples of your volunteer work, family photos, declarations ofog, anything that gives employers an idea of who you are. If you’re an aspiring photographer, include a link to your work. If you’re a scientist, blog about your research. If you’re a writer, well, then, write.

What’s not OK: Waxing on about your favorite beer, inappropriate pictures or quotes, sloppy writing that makes you look uneducated, anything you wouldn’t want on the front page of tomorrow’s paper.

And don’t think setting your profile to "private" gets you off the hook. Bosses aren’t that dumb.

"Employers are looking for better and better ways to screen candidates," Sakey said. "Employers are saying, ‘OK, what tools can we use to find the best candidates?’ They will look at what’s on the Internet about the individual."

Facebook and MySpace also can offer you unlimited networking opportunities. Searching for people who love architecture, for example, or hope to be artists can hook you up with hundreds or thousands of potential friends, co-workers and employers.

Just remember: Best to put the College You out of sight.

"It’s a free country. It’s a free Internet. You can post what you want on there," Sakey said. "But that is all going to have an influence on how you are perceived."

About Headway

Headway Corporate Resources has been delivering innovative workforce solutions since 1974. The Company is a full-service human resources support company that provides high quality recruiting, staffing and human resource support services to a wide range of business sectors, including the financial services, energy, publication and entertainment industries, healthcare, education, government and law. Headway ranks among the top 100 staffing companies in the world.

Headway Corporate Resources is comprised of two complementary service offerings, Recruitment & Staffing and Human Resource Solutions. Recruitment & Staffing focuses on resources for administration, accounting & finance, law, technology, and engineering. Human Resource Solutions is national in scope, and provides comprehensive HR business process outsourcing to companies who maintain a large contingent workforce. Learn more about Headway by logging to headwaycorp.com.