Disclaimer: Based on an article from a recent Reader’s Digest issue, but certainly not copy-pasted.

In this connected world, how safe is your privacy? Never mind about the perverts and psychos roaming around trying to stalk you. You have an even bigger issue to deal with online. Take a look at you Facebook, Friendster or MySpace profile. Now, put yourself in the shoes of a prospective employer and ask yourself: “Would you hire a person whose profile picture shows him puking in a toilet bowl with a comment saying ‘I got sooooo drunk that day’?”

Employers now have gotten very tech savvy, even more than we give them credit for. All a person needs to do is Google your name, and there pops out your profile page with details on your likes, dislikes, pictures and many more. The question is, are you willing to forsake a future employment offer just to have a cool profile page that chicks/hunks dig (or Digg)? Your online profile says a lot about you even before you take your first step into the interviewer’s room. It’s like a background check done in 30 seconds flat. We don’t need private investigators now, do we?

Employers wanna get to know about their prospective employees’ character early on. And social bookmarking sites provide them with ll the information they need in a flash. So, it is good practice to “clean up” your profiles so that they do not let out too much about your misgivings. Your profile is automatically your own public relations tool.

It’s okay to have pictures of you having fun with your friends. Having a picture of you and your friends having a good drink is fine, cause it shows that you can socialize. Having a picture of you being drunk wearing only your boxers shows lack of judgement. It is how you potray yourself to others. And it depends on what line of work you are aiming to get into. Having a website wth your name, filled with fancy graphics and animations and written in your own brand of satirical comedy bodes well for a creativity based job, but it doesn’t seem much of a bright idea for applicants in the hospitality industry where a person’s polite and clean persona carries much weight. It all depends on where you want to end up.

Keeping your profiles private help a lot. But some people prefer to reach out to a wider group of individuals, thus preferring a public profile. In any ways, you must be able to discern what is proper, and what is not. If you have blogs of controversial nature, it is up to you to have your own disclaimer. Think of it as a pre-nuptual agreement between you and your reader(s).

On a personal note, when I was hired for my current job, my interviewer has access to my blog. His verdict? I obviously knew how to program in PHP, and my offbeat ramblings showed creativity skills for problem solving. Though I’d still recommend everyone to style their online presence in their social bookmarking sites to a more “people friendly” manner.

For a better insight, refer to the June 2008 issue of Reader’s Digest (Malaysian Edition), on the article How To Click & Clean by Andy Simmons.