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Opinion

Employers may not add you as a friend 

Ursula Hawkins
Opinion Columnist

For many UH students, the typical sequence of events once one is in front of a computer is as follows: check e-mail, check Facebook account, check WebCT, check Myspace account, attempt to do homework and, last but not least, check Facebook and Myspace again. 

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Xanga are so popular among college students that many make checking these Web sites a priority each day. It's rare to find a college student in America who is not on any of these sites. 

However, while everyone seems to know about these Web sites, many do not know -- or do not take seriously -- the fact that many employers now use these social networking sites to seek out information on job applicants. 

Warren Ashton, a group marketing manger for Microsoft, told the New York Times that researching students before hiring them is "becoming very much a common tool" and that "for the first time ever, you suddenly have very public information about almost any candidate." 

Despite the evidence that employers are using personal online profiles of students as tools in the hiring process, many students are still skeptical. 

This is understandable to some extent, as not all employers do this, but these students also need to realize this practice will become more common as time goes on. 

When www.collegegrad.com asked students if they have changed their personal pages on Facebook or Myspace after hearing about job employers researching them, 35.3 percent of students said they did, or that they planned to do so, while 39.9 percent of students said they did not.

Profile checking is not fair to college students because employers are dipping into candidates' personal lives. 

Students ultimately choose what they want to have on their personal Web pages, but not being able to express themselves for fear of snooping employers takes away a lot of the enjoyment of these sites. 

Students' pages on Web sites should not be a factor in the job selection. A solid résumé with a good transcript usually coincides with a good work ethic. 

What people do in their free time is their own business as long as they not causing anyone else harm. 

Networking Web sites already have policies against saying inappropriate things and posting inappropriate pictures, and that should be enough. 

However, while researching students' personal Web pages is not fair, it is a reality. Students should think twice about what they put on their personal profiles, especially if their graduation date is near. 

Anyone who has a personal account should either take anything that can be used against them off of their page or make it non-accessible to the general public. 

Hawkins a communication/Spanish sophomore, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu.