Nfl Teams Using Myspace And Facebook To Check On Prospects

[neepo13]

[url="http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=cr-socialnetowrking040709&prov=yhoo&type=lgns"]http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=cr-s...o&type=lgns[/url]

I dont know why this should be a surprise to anyone. This happens to almost anyone trying to find a job, especially coming out of college. Most career services at college, well atleast at mine, warn you against what you put on Facebook and Myspace.

[BloodRaven]

Haha I hope they found some good pics.

[Shawn`]

Yup, not a surprise.

I have a friend who recently got out of college looking for a teaching job, she was promptly rejected because she was tagged in an album of a friends party she was at with liquor and such.

[theFRANCHISE]

I'm actually glad that NFL teams are doing this. If other employers are doing this, why should the NFL be any different? NFL draft prospects are no less vulnerable than your average kid coming out of college, after all.

[The Deadman]

[quote name='Shawn`' post='178606' date='Apr 9 2009, 11:49 AM']Yup, not a surprise.

I have a friend who recently got out of college looking for a teaching job, she was promptly rejected because she was tagged in an album of a friends party she was at with liquor and such.[/quote]

thats crap though, because whats on your myspace is your business. it shouldnt reflect your work status whatsoever

[theFRANCHISE]

[quote name='The Deadman' post='178671' date='Apr 9 2009, 03:02 PM']thats crap though, because whats on your myspace is your business. it shouldnt reflect your work status whatsoever[/quote]
True, it shouldn't affect your work status -- BUT, anything that's put on the internet, isn't really private anyway. In theory, since the internet is public, what you put on the internet is a reflection of your public face, which reflects on your professional face since businesses expect your professionalism to show in public if you represent their company.

It may not be fair, but it makes sense. You wouldn't hire a kid who is drunk in half his pictures over the guy who appears to spend most of his time with family, even if those individuals turn out to be the exact opposite of those pictures in reality. You only get one shot to make a first impression, and how you act in private (when put into the public domain) is often the only impression someone gets to make.

[AlaskanRavensFan]

Why don't they start tapping their phones in college and confiscating video from dorm room camera's. I'm not saying that you should be able to put up whatever you want online and not see consequences, but this method of screening could easily abused and is probably a lawsuit waiting to happen.

For instance, what if they start to look at your spouse's Myspace or facebook and notice that one of her friends has inappropriate gestures or activities in her photo album or as her profile pic. It just seems to me that if they really want to know everything about you, then shouldn't there be routine searches through their online activities? Where does it stop?

Alright, so got off topic. I think it can be useful for scouting football players, but I don't like the idea of it in general.

[MKdave]

[quote name='theFRANCHISE' post='178676' date='Apr 9 2009, 08:19 PM']It may not be fair, but it makes sense. You wouldn't hire a kid who is drunk in half his pictures over the guy who appears to spend most of his time with family, even if those individuals turn out to be the exact opposite of those pictures in reality. You only get one shot to make a first impression, and [b]how you act in private[/b] (when put into the public domain) is often the only impression someone gets to make.[/quote]

How you act in private is private. And Facebook and Myspace aren't public domains. They're for your friends only (unless you're one of those ridiculous people who make their Myspace page public, I don't think you can do it with facebook), so if you've been accepted by a colleague then you keep whatever is on thier page to yourself.

[AlaskanRavensFan]

[quote name='Shawn`' post='178606' date='Apr 9 2009, 08:49 AM']Yup, not a surprise.

I have a friend who recently got out of college looking for a teaching job, she was promptly rejected because she was tagged in an album of a friends party she was at with liquor and such.[/quote]

Did your friend have a full bottle in her hand and an ID that showed she was underage? It seems to me that employers should not be able to discriminate against you for doing something that is not illegal.

[theFRANCHISE]

[quote name='MKdave' post='178679' date='Apr 9 2009, 03:34 PM']How you act in private is private. [b]And Facebook and Myspace aren't public domains.[/b] They're for your friends only (unless you're one of those ridiculous people who make their Myspace page public, I don't think you can do it with facebook), so if you've been accepted by a colleague then you keep whatever is on thier page to yourself.[/quote]
See, that gets into the philosophical debate though about whether or not a private page is really private. But at the end of the day, regardless of the legality of everything, it all goes back to the #1 rule of common sense, internet etiquette: don't put on the internet what you wouldn't want your grandmother seeing. Or, in this case, prospective employers.

[theFRANCHISE]

[quote name='AlaskanRavensFan' post='178680' date='Apr 9 2009, 03:40 PM']Did your friend have a full bottle in her hand and an ID that showed she was underage? It seems to me that employers should not be able to discriminate against you for doing something that is not illegal.[/quote]
That goes back to the Michael Phelps photo controversy, because Phelps never explicitly said what the substance in the bong was, nor that he was actually smoking (if I remember correctly). For all we know, he could've just been posing.

[AlaskanRavensFan]

yeah, I'm not condoning underage drinking or doing drugs. I just think that the myspace thing can become an easy excuse to not hire people. They could say that your myspace page did not show the proffessionalism that they would like, when really they saw that you had a particular religious practice that they don't feel comfortable with. Or that you are interacially married, which they don't prefer as the face of their company.

[neepo13]

It all comes down to personal responsibility. By now, people should know that employers are looking at these things, so they should protect themselves against it. There are privacy settings that can be used to keep random people from viewing your profile on myspace and facebook. If you use it, you shouldnt have a problem. That is unless your one of those people that get a kick out of having 3000 friends that you dont know.

[Reed The D]

Good when you find rasict ******s like clay matthews
Who make groups like WHITE NATION with a picture of a black kid in handcuffs
even if it is a joke...