Thanks For The Advice, But I’m Not Deleting Any Facebook Photos

Good blog, dont delete any picture, just change the setting.

Good blog, dont delete any picture, just change the setting.

I agree 100%! Employers are going to search you via social media, but if you have control of your privacy settings, it shouldn't matter!

I agree 100%! Employers are going to search you via social media, but if you have control of your privacy settings, it shouldn't matter!

@Luay: Yea, you can even edit the privacy settings for individual albums!@Ashley: It REALLY shouldn't matter! I'm sick of non-facebook experts telling me I'm ruining my career by not deleting all my facebook pictures…

@Luay: Yea, you can even edit the privacy settings for individual albums!

@Ashley: It REALLY shouldn't matter! I'm sick of non-facebook experts telling me I'm ruining my career by not deleting all my facebook pictures…

I totally agree with your side note. I have controlled my privacy settings on Facebook. I just took off my privacy on twitter because I realized that if an employer didn't like what I had to say on Twitter, they are probably not going to like what I say in real life and I'm not going to keep the true me mum!

I totally agree with your side note. I have controlled my privacy settings on Facebook. I just took off my privacy on twitter because I realized that if an employer didn't like what I had to say on Twitter, they are probably not going to like what I say in real life and I'm not going to keep the true me mum!

Fantastic. It takes 20 minutes to figure out the privacy settings and to go through contacts and make the changes. It's not rocket science but people act as if they are shocked when an employer/coworker/family member sees some information that they didn't want them to. Hello…it's a public forum. Privacy is YOUR responsibility and no one else's. And kudos on your side note. Even though I'm not currently at a job that encourages general frivolity (that was sarcastic but still true), my next employer better be willing to stand a generally happy, goofballish and sarcastic personality.Great post, Carlee.

Love the post, and agree 100%. Be authentic, you don't want to work for a SM Guistapo. Fiddle the privacy settings for different levels of access and use your best discretion.

Fantastic. It takes 20 minutes to figure out the privacy settings and to go through contacts and make the changes. It's not rocket science but people act as if they are shocked when an employer/coworker/family member sees some information that they didn't want them to. Hello…it's a public forum. Privacy is YOUR responsibility and no one else's. And kudos on your side note. Even though I'm not currently at a job that encourages general frivolity (that was sarcastic but still true), my next employer better be willing to stand a generally happy, goofballish and sarcastic personality.

Great post, Carlee.

Love the post, and agree 100%. Be authentic, you don't want to work for a SM Guistapo. Fiddle the privacy settings for different levels of access and use your best discretion.

I'm going to echo what Regina said. Ditto on the side note. If an employer balks at my online persona (which is closely aligned with my real-life persona), we're probably not going to mesh well anyway.As for Facebook, I keep my settings private, but if you google my name, you'll still find plenty to cast judgment upon. I write about sex! Deal with it! (Even better, hire me to write about sex for you!) :)

I'm going to echo what Regina said. Ditto on the side note. If an employer balks at my online persona (which is closely aligned with my real-life persona), we're probably not going to mesh well anyway.

As for Facebook, I keep my settings private, but if you google my name, you'll still find plenty to cast judgment upon. I write about sex! Deal with it! (Even better, hire me to write about sex for you!) :)

Although I do agree, and I personally keep up some crazy photos and have my Facebook setting to VERY personal, the fact still is this is information on the internet. Once you put something on the internet, it ceases to be entirely personal. If you REALLY don't want someone to find out about your life, publishing that information is the not route I would take.On the other hand, I am totally supportive of your "side note" about who wants to work for a company that thinks 20 somethings are constantly sober and have nothing to do but work and worry about their resume (even though that is kind of me right now).However, Past employer once told me that a previous intern didn't get a job BECAUSE her Facebook profile pic was of her in a bikini. I didn't find this completely fair, but also, that's the picture you are using to represent WHO YOU ARE…be careful with that. Her outer representation was so important because the possible-employer was a charity organization that worked with children…They need to have a specific, unified face. These are times when I do agree with employers choosing to judge based on Facebook.

Although I do agree, and I personally keep up some crazy photos and have my Facebook setting to VERY personal, the fact still is this is information on the internet. Once you put something on the internet, it ceases to be entirely personal. If you REALLY don't want someone to find out about your life, publishing that information is the not route I would take.
On the other hand, I am totally supportive of your "side note" about who wants to work for a company that thinks 20 somethings are constantly sober and have nothing to do but work and worry about their resume (even though that is kind of me right now).
However, Past employer once told me that a previous intern didn't get a job BECAUSE her Facebook profile pic was of her in a bikini. I didn't find this completely fair, but also, that's the picture you are using to represent WHO YOU ARE…be careful with that. Her outer representation was so important because the possible-employer was a charity organization that worked with children…They need to have a specific, unified face. These are times when I do agree with employers choosing to judge based on Facebook.

There's one problem I have with this: the privacy policies don't actually mean anything.It's a pretty well-known (or at least publicly available) fact that if you work for Facebook, you can see everything on every user's profile, regardless of their settings. And while I understand the need for this in cases of account moderation and whatnot, there's very little to stop the site from offering this access as a paid service to employers. And I would argue that this can be an important part of the hiring process: it's easy for someone to hide their personality in an application or even an interview. Much in the same way as an applicant would (or should) do research on an employer before they send in a job app, employers should be allowed to do research on the applicants. It can cost companies hundreds or thousands of dollars to train and employ someone, and those costs don't yield any returns if the person did not honestly represent themself to the company.There are hundreds of xenophobic, racist, anti-religion (anti-semitic, anti-Islam, etc), anti-country and anti-sexual preference groups and fan pages on Facebook. If you knew that your organization was going to hire someone in one of those groups, would you be okay with it?I recently went to Twitter and typed in 12 different permutations of the phrase "I hate my stupid boss". Over the last three days, over 350 unique people have entered in a tweet with those words. And regardless of their account privacy settings, their tweets still show up in searches. No matter how well you may think you've protected yourself digitally, there's always a way around privacy settings, and you can bet that a serious employer can find their way around them.FB founder Mark Zuckerberg himself has said that he doesn't like the idea of privacy for users in the first place (http://bit.ly/4LSyfR), which is a strong indicator of why the privacy settings for accounts keep getting more convoluted and harder to navigate. I understand the thinking behind putting your social stuff up on a social network, as well as the implication that it shouldn't be held against you. But if you're serious about appearing as a professional to others, you should moderate your profile. After all, it's not as safe (or private) as you think.

There's one problem I have with this: the privacy policies don't actually mean anything.

It's a pretty well-known (or at least publicly available) fact that if you work for Facebook, you can see everything on every user's profile, regardless of their settings. And while I understand the need for this in cases of account moderation and whatnot, there's very little to stop the site from offering this access as a paid service to employers.

And I would argue that this can be an important part of the hiring process: it's easy for someone to hide their personality in an application or even an interview. Much in the same way as an applicant would (or should) do research on an employer before they send in a job app, employers should be allowed to do research on the applicants. It can cost companies hundreds or thousands of dollars to train and employ someone, and those costs don't yield any returns if the person did not honestly represent themself to the company.

There are hundreds of xenophobic, racist, anti-religion (anti-semitic, anti-Islam, etc), anti-country and anti-sexual preference groups and fan pages on Facebook. If you knew that your organization was going to hire someone in one of those groups, would you be okay with it?

I recently went to Twitter and typed in 12 different permutations of the phrase "I hate my stupid boss". Over the last three days, over 350 unique people have entered in a tweet with those words. And regardless of their account privacy settings, their tweets still show up in searches. No matter how well you may think you've protected yourself digitally, there's always a way around privacy settings, and you can bet that a serious employer can find their way around them.

FB founder Mark Zuckerberg himself has said that he doesn't like the idea of privacy for users in the first place (http://bit.ly/4LSyfR), which is a strong indicator of why the privacy settings for accounts keep getting more convoluted and harder to navigate.

I understand the thinking behind putting your social stuff up on a social network, as well as the implication that it shouldn't be held against you. But if you're serious about appearing as a professional to others, you should moderate your profile. After all, it's not as safe (or private) as you think.

Would you really want to work for a company that wouldn't hire you because there's a photo on the internet of you holding a beer?

Would you really want to work for a company that wouldn't hire you because there's a photo on the internet of you holding a beer?

I like living honestly and out in the open, but then again, I'm not a 20something anymore. I don't censor myself on any of my blogs, particularly my personal blog about the going ons of my life (marriage, pregnancy, money…) or my Facebook profile either. This is me, the good, the bad and everything in between. If a company wants to scrutinize one tiny sliver of my life without looking at the entire picture, then I don't want to associate myself with a company, as close-minded as that.Nice post…thanks for sharing!

I like living honestly and out in the open, but then again, I'm not a 20something anymore. I don't censor myself on any of my blogs, particularly my personal blog about the going ons of my life (marriage, pregnancy, money…) or my Facebook profile either.

This is me, the good, the bad and everything in between. If a company wants to scrutinize one tiny sliver of my life without looking at the entire picture, then I don't want to associate myself with a company, as close-minded as that.

Nice post…thanks for sharing!

I’m definitely not a fan of private Twitter accounts. Really, what is the point? How will anyone know if they want to follow you or not if they can’t see what you’re saying?

I’m definitely not a fan of private Twitter accounts. Really, what is the point? How will anyone know if they want to follow you or not if they can’t see what you’re saying?

Best comment you’ve ever made. Thanks Philihp!

Best comment you’ve ever made. Thanks Philihp!

Great post, Carlee. I have heard the argument about facebook pictures a lot. In the past, I’ve even known kids who are in an education major and, when they went to student teach, they were REQUIRED to delete their facebook account all together! I don’t know how they could require that, but they did.

The best option I’ve heard of is to untag yourself from the bad pictures. They’ll still be there, but your name won’t be attached. Overall, I don’t think bad facebook pics are anything to worry about anyway. After all, employers are looking into hiring someone who went to college, what do they expect to find? :-)

Great post, Carlee. I have heard the argument about facebook pictures a lot. In the past, I’ve even known kids who are in an education major and, when they went to student teach, they were REQUIRED to delete their facebook account all together! I don’t know how they could require that, but they did.

The best option I’ve heard of is to untag yourself from the bad pictures. They’ll still be there, but your name won’t be attached. Overall, I don’t think bad facebook pics are anything to worry about anyway. After all, employers are looking into hiring someone who went to college, what do they expect to find? :-)

Great perspective Andrea… I wonder if the whole Facebook privatizing matter really only applies to 20somethings. By that I mean that maybe employers are only thinking to look up 20somethings and/or junior staff on Facebook (assuming others either don’t have an account or wouldn’t have any juicy material). Are employers only looking for crazy drinking/party photos? I’m actually not sure I believe that at all. Personally I think that even older generations are being judged by their Facebook profile content, just in different ways.

Anyways, I also strive to live honestly and open so I really admire what you’re doing. I hope that my next employer can accept me as a full human-being and still take me seriously and believe that I can be professional. Thanks!

Great perspective Andrea… I wonder if the whole Facebook privatizing matter really only applies to 20somethings. By that I mean that maybe employers are only thinking to look up 20somethings and/or junior staff on Facebook (assuming others either don’t have an account or wouldn’t have any juicy material). Are employers only looking for crazy drinking/party photos? I’m actually not sure I believe that at all. Personally I think that even older generations are being judged by their Facebook profile content, just in different ways.

Anyways, I also strive to live honestly and open so I really admire what you’re doing. I hope that my next employer can accept me as a full human-being and still take me seriously and believe that I can be professional. Thanks!

That’s pretty crazy about the teachers that had to DELETE their accounts though. I think that’s way over the top. It can be really hard for student teachers or any other young teacher to gain respect in a high school or college classroom though, so keeping their FB accounts private is absolutely essential. I do have a friend who’s a teacher and has a hard time dealing with mass friend requests from her students. She has to tell them NO all the time. But being in such a tight-knit community it would be really easy for some smart high school or college students to ask someone who IS friends with the teacher to just browse her profile and then…. yea no good.

Haha yep, most employers are looking to hire college graduates these days. And yes, some of the stereotypes were even true! I mean really if a recent college grad has a 4.0 GPA from a respectable university and they’re also in lots of party pictures I would think “WOW great time management skills”. Work Hard Play Hard is my motto.

That’s pretty crazy about the teachers that had to DELETE their accounts though. I think that’s way over the top. It can be really hard for student teachers or any other young teacher to gain respect in a high school or college classroom though, so keeping their FB accounts private is absolutely essential. I do have a friend who’s a teacher and has a hard time dealing with mass friend requests from her students. She has to tell them NO all the time. But being in such a tight-knit community it would be really easy for some smart high school or college students to ask someone who IS friends with the teacher to just browse her profile and then…. yea no good.

Haha yep, most employers are looking to hire college graduates these days. And yes, some of the stereotypes were even true! I mean really if a recent college grad has a 4.0 GPA from a respectable university and they’re also in lots of party pictures I would think “WOW great time management skills”. Work Hard Play Hard is my motto.

Moral of the story once again, be smart. Know your industry and if you really want a job at a certain company or in a certain industry, then make sure you reflect that.

While we can protect the inner-depths of our profiles pretty well, we can’t forget that our profile pictures are public to anyone who wants to see it.

Moral of the story once again, be smart. Know your industry and if you really want a job at a certain company or in a certain industry, then make sure you reflect that.

While we can protect the inner-depths of our profiles pretty well, we can’t forget that our profile pictures are public to anyone who wants to see it.

Steph, I absolutely love that you chimed in because you made me realize something else that I may not have thought about had you not brought it up. The fact that all of this privacy mess completely depends on your industry! What’s acceptable or expected for you to say publicly varies from person to person greatly, but even a sex writer like you still has a private Facebook account, because heck, our Facebook accounts are personal!

If you want to learn more about a potential employee, just Google them!

Steph, I absolutely love that you chimed in because you made me realize something else that I may not have thought about had you not brought it up. The fact that all of this privacy mess completely depends on your industry! What’s acceptable or expected for you to say publicly varies from person to person greatly, but even a sex writer like you still has a private Facebook account, because heck, our Facebook accounts are personal!

If you want to learn more about a potential employee, just Google them!

I’m just going to respond to each section here,:

“It’s a pretty well-known (or at least publicly available) fact that if you work for Facebook, you can see everything on every user’s profile, regardless of their settings. And while I understand the need for this in cases of account moderation and whatnot, there’s very little to stop the site from offering this access as a paid service to employers.” —>And when they offer this to employers, everyone will stop using Facebook. Even if people don’t delete their accounts, they will severely modify their use of the site. So therefore, I really do NOT believe that Facebook will start making this information public access.

“There are hundreds of xenophobic, racist, anti-religion (anti-semitic, anti-Islam, etc), anti-country and anti-sexual preference groups and fan pages on Facebook. If you knew that your organization was going to hire someone in one of those groups, would you be okay with it? “—->One, it’s completely illegal not to hire someone simply because of their beliefs, which is exactly that would be. Sure, if I were hiring someone to head a Jewish Research Center I wouldn’t hire someone with anti-semitic beliefs, but in the general population, an employee’s personal preferences, beliefs, and hobbies shouldn’t BREAK the job offer (although yes, these things could MAKE the job offer if they applied to the position). If an employer wants to check out a potential employee, then they should do a simple Google search, do a background check, and CALL REFERENCES the old-fashioned way. If the applicant’s references end up saying only great things about the person, does it matter “what else you might find out” on Facebook?

“I recently went to Twitter and typed in 12 different permutations of the phrase “I hate my stupid boss”. Over the last three days, over 350 unique people have entered in a tweet with those words. And regardless of their account privacy settings, their tweets still show up in searches. No matter how well you may think you’ve protected yourself digitally, there’s always a way around privacy settings, and you can bet that a serious employer can find their way around them.” –>Twitter is whole different ball-park. Hopefully everyone knows by now that anything you say on twitter is about as public as it can get. The people who are tweeting about hating their boss are either confident that their boss will never use google, they don’t care about their job, or they’re just dumb. As for Facebook though, it would take a hell of a lot of effort for an employer to “get around” a user’s privacy settings. I know this because part of my job is tracking 20somethings on social media using the email addresses they provided us. I did a Facebook search of THOUSANDS of users and not once came across a public profile (meaning I could only see their profile picture, name, school, and employer at MOST). I tried myself to get around the privacy settings for research’s sake and simply could not. Now if you’re FB friends with your boss… that is a whole different ball game.

“FB founder Mark Zuckerberg himself has said that he doesn’t like the idea of privacy for users in the first place (http://bit.ly/4LSyfR), which is a strong indicator of why the privacy settings for accounts keep getting more convoluted and harder to navigate.” –> And Zuckerberg thinks he’s God, but he is not. While he wants to take over the internet and maybe even the world, there are still a lot of people (including lawyers) who can keep him in check.

“I understand the thinking behind putting your social stuff up on a social network, as well as the implication that it shouldn’t be held against you. But if you’re serious about appearing as a professional to others, you should moderate your profile. After all, it’s not as safe (or private) as you think.” –> Your point here is absolutely on-point though. Everything isn’t as private as you think, which is exactly why you just have to take precautions and be smart. We’re not all going to stop using Facebook or stop utilizing the photo feature. We should just be privatizing our accounts, using discretion when accepting friend requests, and don’t act like an idiot!

I’m just going to respond to each section here,:

“It’s a pretty well-known (or at least publicly available) fact that if you work for Facebook, you can see everything on every user’s profile, regardless of their settings. And while I understand the need for this in cases of account moderation and whatnot, there’s very little to stop the site from offering this access as a paid service to employers.” —>And when they offer this to employers, everyone will stop using Facebook. Even if people don’t delete their accounts, they will severely modify their use of the site. So therefore, I really do NOT believe that Facebook will start making this information public access.

“There are hundreds of xenophobic, racist, anti-religion (anti-semitic, anti-Islam, etc), anti-country and anti-sexual preference groups and fan pages on Facebook. If you knew that your organization was going to hire someone in one of those groups, would you be okay with it? “—->One, it’s completely illegal not to hire someone simply because of their beliefs, which is exactly that would be. Sure, if I were hiring someone to head a Jewish Research Center I wouldn’t hire someone with anti-semitic beliefs, but in the general population, an employee’s personal preferences, beliefs, and hobbies shouldn’t BREAK the job offer (although yes, these things could MAKE the job offer if they applied to the position). If an employer wants to check out a potential employee, then they should do a simple Google search, do a background check, and CALL REFERENCES the old-fashioned way. If the applicant’s references end up saying only great things about the person, does it matter “what else you might find out” on Facebook?

“I recently went to Twitter and typed in 12 different permutations of the phrase “I hate my stupid boss”. Over the last three days, over 350 unique people have entered in a tweet with those words. And regardless of their account privacy settings, their tweets still show up in searches. No matter how well you may think you’ve protected yourself digitally, there’s always a way around privacy settings, and you can bet that a serious employer can find their way around them.” –>Twitter is whole different ball-park. Hopefully everyone knows by now that anything you say on twitter is about as public as it can get. The people who are tweeting about hating their boss are either confident that their boss will never use google, they don’t care about their job, or they’re just dumb. As for Facebook though, it would take a hell of a lot of effort for an employer to “get around” a user’s privacy settings. I know this because part of my job is tracking 20somethings on social media using the email addresses they provided us. I did a Facebook search of THOUSANDS of users and not once came across a public profile (meaning I could only see their profile picture, name, school, and employer at MOST). I tried myself to get around the privacy settings for research’s sake and simply could not. Now if you’re FB friends with your boss… that is a whole different ball game.

“FB founder Mark Zuckerberg himself has said that he doesn’t like the idea of privacy for users in the first place (http://bit.ly/4LSyfR), which is a strong indicator of why the privacy settings for accounts keep getting more convoluted and harder to navigate.” –> And Zuckerberg thinks he’s God, but he is not. While he wants to take over the internet and maybe even the world, there are still a lot of people (including lawyers) who can keep him in check.

“I understand the thinking behind putting your social stuff up on a social network, as well as the implication that it shouldn’t be held against you. But if you’re serious about appearing as a professional to others, you should moderate your profile. After all, it’s not as safe (or private) as you think.” –> Your point here is absolutely on-point though. Everything isn’t as private as you think, which is exactly why you just have to take precautions and be smart. We’re not all going to stop using Facebook or stop utilizing the photo feature. We should just be privatizing our accounts, using discretion when accepting friend requests, and don’t act like an idiot!