Internships, Jobs and Careers: Another Facebook No-No – Sending a Friend Request to a Job Interviewer

The July 29^th Wall Street Journal article by Sarah E. Needleman entitled “Thx for the IView! I Wud (heart) to Work 4U!!;) Young Job Candidates Find Too-Casual Tone of Textspeak Turns Off Hiring Managers” surprised me.

I wasn’t surprised that young job candidates didn’t know better than to use texting abbreviations in their thank-you notes to interviewers. I’ve written before about the need to use proper English (spelling and grammar) for such communication.

But I admit I was surprised that young people on Facebook send friend requests to interviewers with personal pages on Facebook. This assumes a peer relationship that doesn’t exist. And this action can be fraught with peril if the job applicant has been indiscreet on his or her Facebook profile page.

Although Facebook is now being used more and more for business, there’s still a major difference between Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook is a social media site first, a business site second. LinkedIn is a business site first, a social media site second.

Therefore I do believe it would be appropriate to send an add to network request to an interviewer on LinkedIn because presumably the interviewer is on the site for business purposes.

But to send a friend request to an interviewer who is on Facebook in her or his personal capacity and not on a company page is presumptuous. Regardless of what you may think, the interviewer does not want to share her or his likes in music and movies with you.

As in everything else on the internet, you have to use good judgment. Every time I want to send a message to someone through Facebook, I stop and consider whether this is something that could be put on the person’s wall or whether this is something that should only be seen by the recipient. These messages can’t be dashed off without any thought.

Just because you can send a message around the world in a flash does NOT mean that you should disengage your brain from your activities.

And, according to the Journal article, interviewers are worried about hiring someone who text messages a thank you using abbreviated language. What kind of business correspondence can this young person be trusted to do? After all, every communication that person sends if working at a company reflects back on the company.

Next time you’re tempted to dash off a thank you from your BlackBerry five minutes after you’ve left an interview, consider whether that is the best positioning of your image. While you don’t have to produce a hand-written thank-you note, a well-formulated email could go a long way towards demonstrating that you know professional communication standards.

Remember, as always, the job opportunity that you impact positively or negatively by your actions may be the one that you really want. Don’t jeopardize it by two-thumbing a sloppy, jargon-laced thank you.

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Yet Another Facebook Profile Photo Warning – Take This Advice Seriously!

Yesterday Peter Shankman’s www.helpareporter.com email alert had this query:

Doing market research for an article:

What, if anything, are kinds/young adults taught in grade school/high school and/or college re: online profiles and social media such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.?

What if you found out that your college-age nephew, who is slated to take over the family business after college, looks like a total idiot online? How do we teach our upcoming “young professionals” that posting pics of themselves in nothing but a diaper at Halloween is just not appropriate?

Of course I immediately responded to this query because I often blog about this problem of inappropriate photos and personal info on social media. I even forwarded to the reporter my post of June 6^th (see http://tinyurl.com/5g9hgr).

And then I went on Facebook because I’m working with a young woman and her mother to more effectively use Facebook and LinkedIn (and start on Twitter) to help establish their professional brands. And what do you think I found on the young woman’s profile page?

A profile photo of her making a face (she’ll be 27 in September), and for “interested in” on her profile she had put Men.

I immediately emailed her that she must:

a) replace that goofy photo with an appropriate profile photo

b) eliminate the “interested in” entry and instead use the “looking for” entry of Friendship and Networking

Was I annoyed that I had to tell her this? Yes and no. Yes, because she should have known better. No, because obviously from the reporter’s query there are lots of young adults who don’t know better.

If you’re a reader of this blog, I sincerely hope you’ve taken my warnings to heart. Be sure your profile photos on all social media sites of which you’re a member are appropriate as well as having appropriate comments on your profile pages.

The career that you do NOT sabotage if you follow this advice is your own.

“Tweeting” Your Image – the Twitter Phenomenon

Just when you’ve got MySpace and Facebook figured out – carefully balancing “fun” with maintaining a professional image – comes Twitter, a micro-blogging platform that offers you the ability to send messages (tweets) of 140 characters -- not 140 words.

The idea is that you post a message on Twitter to let everyone who is “following” you know what you are doing. In other words, people choose to “follow” you and then get a news feed of your tweets.

In the last week I’ve gotten email newsletters from several internet marketers explaining how to use Twitter for business purposes. Trying to follow this advice, I’ve sent tweets about attending the two-day internet marketing seminar of John Kremer (www.bookmarket.com) as well as attending BookExpoAmerica. Last night I sent a tweet about reading the book “Problogger” by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett recommended by the BlogSquad (www.blogsquad.biz).

It’s important to consider how this new social phenomenon (it’s free – anyone can sign up at www.twitter.com) could help or hinder your professional image. If you sign up for this social network, ANYONE else who is on the network can “follow” you unless you check “Protect my updates.” (This lets only people whom you approve follow your updates.)

I’ve just put a Twitter link on both of my blogs. (I chose to have only one tweet appear rather than the five tweets that is the default setting.) And I actually don’t update through Twitter. I update through Ping.fm, which at this writing is still in beta.

And actually I don’t go to the Ping site to update. I go to my Facebook page, where I have the Ping application. There I can dash off a quick update that Ping sends to the sites I’ve indicated: Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. And, now apparently, Twitter then sends the update to my two blogs.

Okay, are you as confused as I am? And you want to know what’s the point of this post? One, you should know what Twitter and tweets are if someone asks you about this new phenomenon. Two, you should remember to follow all the “protect your brand” recommendations that I’ve given for other social media networks.

And because it is so easy to dash off a tweet, you may have to be especially careful to resist shooting off a risqué comment. Instead, if you decide to join Twitter, consider how you can positively impact your brand.

You know what? I’m going to send a tweet through Ping on my Facebook account that I’ve just blogged about Twitter.

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