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Big firm interviewer here.

Please, for the love of god, lock down your Facebook profile. The first thing I do when I get your resume is I look you up on Facebook. For roughly half of the candidates, I can see wallposts, pictures and Facebook journal entries. 90% of the time these are relatively innocuous because I don't care of people are getting drunk (though others might...) but 10% of the time you see some really dumb shit that shows that you probably wouldn't be a good fit (and this is objectively bad, like saying "fuck biglaw I'm gonna be out in 2 years" bad).

Lock. It. Down.

How about Twitter? Hypothetically speaking, if one's timeline were full of profanity-laced rants about sports and terrible jokes, would that be a demerit?

Alternatively, don't have stupid embarrassing shit on your facebook to begin with.

Anonymous User wrote:How about Twitter? Hypothetically speaking, if one's timeline were full of profanity-laced rants about sports and terrible jokes, would that be a demerit?

Would be a merit to me. But others might care. Point being: don't even take that risk.

Just lock that shit down.

rinkrat19 wrote:Alternatively, don't have stupid embarrassing shit on your facebook to begin with.

+1

I purposely did not lock down facebook. Instead, family pix, Disneyland, playing with the dog… the poster page for G rating… even the favorite movie, book and tv shows were all vanilla. If there was a chance a firm might check me out on FB….I was ready!!

Amity wrote:I purposely did not lock down facebook. Instead, family pix, Disneyland, playing with the dog… the poster page for G rating… even the favorite movie, book and tv shows were all vanilla. If there was a chance a firm might check me out on FB….I was ready!!

Same. If I were a recruiter, I would assume that people who don't have a Facebook are weirdos.

Danger Zone wrote:

Amity wrote:I purposely did not lock down facebook. Instead, family pix, Disneyland, playing with the dog… the poster page for G rating… even the favorite movie, book and tv shows were all vanilla. If there was a chance a firm might check me out on FB….I was ready!!

Same. If I were a recruiter, I would assume that people who don't have a Facebook are weirdos.

You might, but I don't think recruiters do. Not everyone lives on Facebook publicly.

it's not weird to have your only public access = name + profile pic. It's also not that weird to be non-searchable.

Anonymous User wrote:it's not weird to have your only public access = name + profile pic. It's also not that weird to be non-searchable.

I do both of those things, but I know, at least where I worked pre-LS, that hiring people have software to get around those obstacles.

Amity wrote:I purposely did not lock down facebook. Instead, family pix, Disneyland, playing with the dog… the poster page for G rating… even the favorite movie, book and tv shows were all vanilla. If there was a chance a firm might check me out on FB….I was ready!!

That's fine. And I like that shit. But who knows maybe it would offend someone's sensibilities.

Lock that shit down.

And yes, for this particular candidate, it influenced his or her evaluation. Negatively.

Anonymous User wrote: (and this is objectively bad, like saying "fuck biglaw I'm gonna be out in 2 years" bad).
Lock. It. Down.

i'm only a useless k-jd 3L millennial but i would ONLY hire people who said stuff like this

OP:

I do not have and have never had a facebook or any other social media. Does this reflect poorly on me? Do you just assume it was full of bad stuff and I deleted it?

Anonymous User wrote:OP:

I do not have and have never had a facebook or any other social media. Does this reflect poorly on me? Do you just assume it was full of bad stuff and I deleted it?

Why would I assume that??? I would assume you made it private (aka locked that shit down). My first thought would never be that you just don't have it. And if it was, I'd respect you for it.

Amity wrote:I purposely did not lock down facebook. Instead, family pix, Disneyland, playing with the dog… the poster page for G rating… even the favorite movie, book and tv shows were all vanilla. If there was a chance a firm might check me out on FB….I was ready!!

If I were an interviewer I'd think you were boring.

rad lulz wrote:

Amity wrote:I purposely did not lock down facebook. Instead, family pix, Disneyland, playing with the dog… the poster page for G rating… even the favorite movie, book and tv shows were all vanilla. If there was a chance a firm might check me out on FB….I was ready!!

If I were an interviewer I'd think you were boring.

+1.

In addition to high security settings, is changing your name enough (e.g. going by your mother's maiden name)?

Anonymous User wrote:In addition to high security settings, is changing your name enough (e.g. going by your mother's maiden name)?

I've found that, even when someone changes their name, I can still find them by typing in their name as I know it.

Danger Zone wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:In addition to high security settings, is changing your name enough (e.g. going by your mother's maiden name)?

I've found that, even when someone changes their name, I can still find them by typing in their name as I know it.

or email, which is a very efficient way of finding people online.

Mine is already pretty clean and pretty private, but I think I'm going to go through and "professionalize" it a bit.

I don't have a Facebook, Twitter, or anything. I think a couple of interviewers haven't actually believed me when I said I don't. But it definitely makes life easier.

rad lulz wrote:

Amity wrote:I purposely did not lock down facebook. Instead, family pix, Disneyland, playing with the dog… the poster page for G rating… even the favorite movie, book and tv shows were all vanilla. If there was a chance a firm might check me out on FB….I was ready!!

If I were an interviewer I'd think you were boring.

That’s a scenario that neither one of us will ever need to be concerned with.

Amity wrote:

rad lulz wrote:

Amity wrote:I purposely did not lock down facebook. Instead, family pix, Disneyland, playing with the dog… the poster page for G rating… even the favorite movie, book and tv shows were all vanilla. If there was a chance a firm might check me out on FB….I was ready!!

If I were an interviewer I'd think you were boring.

That’s a scenario that neither one of us will ever need to be concerned with.

Good thing you weren't an asshole about it.

I have no facebook, no twitter, no linkedin, no nothing.

This past summer, the recruiting coordinator at my firm told me that, during the recruiting process, someone said: "It's weird he's not online."

I guess I should feel lucky that I have a job . . . lol . . . yolo . . . omg.

I deleted my FB. No regrets at all.