Just the other day there was a group organized to quit Facebook due to its privacy settings. I thought to myself “should I quit?” I rarely ever use it and I don’t care to join someone I knew in high school in a game of Mafia Wars. So why not quit? It seemed like an opportune time.

Well if you haven’t herd the group flopped but did manage to have 31,000 people leave - enough to have Zuckerberg change the privacy settings. As for me, I kept my profile and I may make it more available to the public to view it.

If you Google my name as well as many peoples names a Facebook page may be among one of the top searches. We all have heard horror stories about potential employers checking out someone’s Facebook page before an interview. Everyone views this as a bad thing - well I say why not let them. Facebook lets you control the content you have on there so why not make it look like a Linkedin page (professional). When they look you up expecting to see a photo of you in a bar or at a party and find up with an individual with a professional image they will be far more impressed. Now I wouldn’t completely remove the social life from my Facebook, I would leave up pictures that showed personality i.e pictures of me attending charity events, playing sports, or traveling. Show them that you are able to fit into their organizational culture.

Take advantage of a situation that others are not. Due to the high volume of traffic Facebook is one of the top sites that will come up when you Google your name. Allowing an employer to see you as a person and not just a resume may bring you to the top of the applicant pool. Where as others have simply shut them out or do not care who see’s the latest bar night out on the town may suffer.

Please feel free to read more on this topic from my last blog Go Google Yourself.

- Chuck