Visible on Facebook, flaws and all
Once upon a time, the boundary between public and private was pretty clear-cut. The advent of social networking sites has blurred the picture. It's highly convenient, even enjoyable, to put all sorts of personal information in our accounts with sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and share them with friends. But that can be a double-edged sword: not all your visitors are friends.
A survey by finance and accounting recruitment firm Robert Half has found Hong Kong hiring managers make it a habit to check online profiles of job applicants. Up to 71 per cent of managers in the city say they conduct such background checks on the Net, compared with just 36 per cent in Australia and 50 per cent in Singapore.
This may carry the whiff of personal intrusion, but who can blame them? It's taken for granted that people put a positive spin on their CVs. But a fair number go further. They lie about their work experience and professional qualifications. And so reading a person's Facebook page, like checking with previous employers and accrediting institutions, can give a sense of what a person is really like.
The clues aren't confined to nasty or naughty material. If it looks like you spend a lot of time posting trivial updates about yourself, what might a prospective boss think about such activities? So, unless you are a teenager or retiree without a care in the world, keep your profile professional and clean. You must assume that whatever you put on the internet can be seen by anyone and is effectively an open book.
Who knows? Now that job seekers know they may be snooped on, they can tinker with their online profiles to make themselves more presentable.
But the best advice is - keep your online self honest.
