The Corporate Worker’s Guide to Evaluating a Facebook Profile

When we think of “cleaning up” one’s social networking profile, we often restrict this to business sites like LinkedIn. However, nowadays, many experts are recommending that you also polish your Facebook profiles.

And why shouldn’t you? Odds are, potential employers and business contacts could be looking at it (see this article from CBS News for more info). Here are some tips on how to evaluate your Facebook profile for corporate purposes:

Review all your displayed photographs.  Make sure that no embarrassing photos are in public view. This includes exposing your beer belly, dancing in a nightclub in a skimpy outfit, or even running around in your diapers.  Sure, you can still post those photos – but customize the settings.  Only let a few, trusted people see photographs of questionable content.

Reduce clutter.  Are 200 applications on your profile absolutely necessary?  Make sure you only keept he essentials visible.  You can have some fun and place non-business applications on your profile – just be choosy as to what those applications are.  Putting “Panty Raid” and “Dope Wars” on your profile might not be your best bet.

Don’t write like an illiterate 12 year old.  Do your wall messages or profile phrases include this: “LOLZ!” “Zup wit u!” etc.?  While you can do that on private messages with your friends, good written communication skills are required for most jobs.  If a future employer sees you writing like that, it might be a turn off.

Shorten the URL.  Notice how your Facebook profile address has lengthy numbers you can’t memorize?  This makes sharing your profile a bit harder to do.  Try using go2fb to shorten your profile URL.

Based only on what you see on your profile, step inside a potential employer’s shoes for a second and ask yourself, “Is this person worth hiring?”