The deadline for On-Campus Recruitment resume submissions is tomorrow, and everyone wants to look good on paper.
But a killer resume can only get applicants so far - the recruitment process has made its way to the Web as well.
"Employers who recruit at Penn are searching Facebook and they're googling candidates," Director of Career Services Patricia Rose said in an online podcast located on the Career Services Web site.
"I think people have to realize that when you put things on the Web, you're not talking to your friends, you're talking to the world," said Communications professor Joseph Turow.
"Hopefully bosses will realize that people fool around, but you'd be surprised as to the conclusions people draw based on what they see," he added.
But how are employers finding their way into college Facebook accounts?
Any Penn alumnus can join the network on Facebook, or an employer can hire current Penn students to do the research, Rose said.
According to a Jan. 7 article in The Nation, four out of five Facebook members are using the site with the default privacy setting, which grants all users in their network access to their profile page. In the Penn network, that would mean unrestricted access for over 38,000 users.
Career Services officials recommend that students adjust privacy settings so that only "friends" can see their profiles.
But even then, government agencies may be able to gain access to online profiles under the provisions of the Patriot Act, Rose said.
The highest privacy settings don't necessarily put you out of employers' reach, Career Services associate director Claire Klieger said.
"Employers can still find pictures of you through friends who have open profiles, so you should pay attention to the types of pictures you're tagged in," she added.
College senior Michelle Tandler, who will be working for McKinsey & Company this fall, said impression management on Facebook was a concern throughout the job search and beyond.
"With the number of people on Facebook today, you don't know who's looking at your profile," she said. "My usual rule is that I don't put anything up there that I wouldn't want on the front page of the newspaper."
College sophomore Daniel Kroese, who is looking for a summer internship in investment banking or finance, said employers should remember that Penn students are college students, after all.
"If I was an investment banker in New York, and I saw that people drank at frat parties, I wouldn't think it's a problem," he said. "They're hiring college students, so they have to think that it comes with the territory," he added.
But Klieger encouraged students to do everything they can to put their best face forward.
General profile maintenance is a good idea, she said. Job applicants would be wise to "untag" embarrassing photos and delete inappropriate wall posts - authored by both themselves and their friends.
Kroese said he wouldn't let personal opinions stand in the way of his job search. "I'll probably untag some pictures and clean up my profile a little," he said.
