CoimbatoreTaxi News

Popular websites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, Blogspot, and Xanga make it easy to build a web of friends and acquaintances, and share with them your photos, whereabouts, contact information, and interests.

But be thoughtful about what you post; don’t put your safety or your future at risk.

Never forget: the words and images you post on the Internet may be available for years, and your profile may be viewed by future employers and school admissions officials, as well as identity thieves, spammers, and stalkers.

Social networking sites explained

Sometimes called “friend-of-a-friend” sites, social networking websites build upon the concept of traditional social networks in the “real world,” connecting users to familiar and new people through mutual acquaintances and common interests.

The very nature of such sites encourages users to provide a certain amount of personal information. But when deciding how much information to reveal, people may not exercise the same amount of caution on a Website as they would when meeting someone in person. This happens because:

• the Internet provides a sense of anonymity;
• the lack of physical interaction provides a false sense of security; and
• they tailor the information for their friends to read, forgetting that others may see it.

Sharing too much information on social networking sites can be problematic in two ways: first, it can reveal something about you that you’d rather your current or future employer or school administrator not know, and second, it can put your personal safety at risk.

Making your online profile work for you instead of against you

Recent media coverage has highlighted a new, fast-growing trend among corporate recruiters and school admissions officials: more than just Googling candidates, many are now monitoring social networking sites, too. Recent studies have shown that 1 in 10 admissions officers checks for candidates on social networking sites and 38 percent of the time, this leads to rejections. These numbers are likely to continue to climb in coming years.

So what’s the best course of action? Use your online profile to your advantage!

Treat it like a free place to promote yourself personally and professionally while staying connected with both nearby and far-flung friends, relatives, colleagues, and acquaintances. When applying to schools or conducting a job search, this is particularly true.

So, if you mentioned on your resume that you volunteer in your community, can speak another language, or travel for work or pleasure—then “round out” your claim by backing it up online. Share photos of your recent trip, or of you doing community service work. Similarly, if you have expertise in a certain subject area, create an online “portfolio” of sorts: post links to items you’ve written or developed or artwork you’ve created. This way, if they search for you online and find you—and again, statistics show that increasingly that’s exactly what’s happening—what they discover will actually bolster your application!

CoimbatoreTaxi News