Employers are more and more reaping the "benefits" of Facebook.  They are asking applcants for their FB passwords or for the opportunity to review the applicant’s Facebook page.  A corrections officer was required to provide his Facebook login information so his superiors could look at his Facebook page as part of his recertification process.  The interviewer then read through his page and the pages of his friends and family.  See MSN report.  He complained about it.  But, the Maryland Department of Corrections still asks applicants to voluntarily log onto their Facebook page and let the interviewer look at their pages.  Most officers agree to do so because they want to make a good impression.

Student athletes are required by many universities to friend their coaches so the coaches can monitor their FB pages.  

A business, Social Intelligence, exists solely to scrape the internet looking for everything said by potential job applicants on the internet for the previous seven years.  It assembles a file on the applicants with positive and negative information – looking specifically for racist comments, references to drugs, sexually explicit photos, flagrant displays of weapons or bombs and clearly identifiable violent activity.  See CBS News advice column.  Suzanne Lucas, the author of the column and also the publisher of the very helpful blog, Evil HR Lady, warns us all to understand that nothing posted on the internet is ever truly private.  Just be careful, she warns.  Do not post pictures of that wild party at the beach….