think twice before using Facebook’s new jobs feature

by Alison Green on March 6, 2017

Last month, Facebook launched a new jobs feature where employers can post jobs for free and candidates can apply for those jobs by using Facebook’s interface.

On the surface, it looks like an easy and straightforward way to get yourself into contention for jobs. Your application will be pre-populated with data from your Facebook page (including things like your name, city, state, email, and phone number, but also your work experience and education) and you’ll be asked to fill in a short-answer section on why you think you’re a good candidate for the job.

Then, employers who receive your application this way and want to learn more about you can click a “view profile” link to see your public Facebook page. You and the employer can then use Facebook Messenger to communicate throughout the hiring process.

But before you start applying for jobs this way, there are potential downsides to consider.

* Privacy issues. Savvy job candidates have spent the last decade locking down their Facebook profiles in order to have some privacy from employers, and so that they wouldn’t be judged for what they do in their off hours. This new feature reverses all that, offering what’s essentially an engraved invitation for employers to look at your Facebook profile. Do you want your Facebook profile being the first impression an employer has of you?

It’s also important to note that the privacy issues run in both directions: If you add more details about your experience or education when applying for a job with the Facebook interface, that information will update on your Facebook profile too. And that of course gives Facebook more information about you as well.

* Effectiveness. In most fields, the most effective job applications include a personalized, tailored cover letter and often a resume that’s tailored to the position too. You’ll be giving up your ability to present a tailored application in exchange for ease of applying, and that’s often not a trade-off worth making. If you’re serious about a particular job, it makes sense to give yourself the best possible chance it, by creating the most effective resume and cover letter that you can.

* Discrimination concerns. When Facebook will pre-populates your application with information from your profile, it will include your profile photo. This is the kind of thing that makes smart employers nervous, because it raises the chances of discrimination based on race (which is illegal) or looks (which isn’t illegal in most U.S. jurisdictions but is still bad hiring). And sure, the employer ultimately will see in you person if you get an interview, but opening the gate to discrimination right from the start puts candidates at a disadvantage. (It’s true that LinkedIn profiles typically include photos and that’s a site that’s explicitly intended for business site, but employers have to proactively seek out your photo there. The concern here is that your photo will be actively being pushed to employers as part of your resume.)

The potential for discrimination extends beyond profile photos. If your Facebook profile indicates that you’re involved in a particular religious organization, or a cancer support group, or a particular political cause, employers may now have easy access to that information as well.

* Blurring of the professional and the personal. Thanks to texting and email and other technology, it’s already hard for lots of people to get away from work when they come home. For the most part, though, Facebook has been a social networking site, while LinkedIn has been where you go for business networking. Injecting job applications into Facebook may blur the lines between personal and work personas in a way that will further erode people’s ability to carve out any space that’s exclusively for friends and family.

But if you’re intrigued by Facebook’s new jobs feature, there might be a middle ground. You could use the feature to get information about jobs at companies that you’re interested in – and then apply through the company’s website, which will let you benefit from the feature while still navigating around the concerns above.

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    1. Amber T*

      Yep, that gets a big NOPE from me. Some immediate issues I’d run into if I applied for a job using Facebook –

      – Incorrect name. To keep my employer from checking out my Facebook (and just to be more difficult to find in general), my last name on FB is really my middle name. It’s pretty common and if someone was REALLY looking for me they could find me. But I’m not changing it on FB.
      – My profile picture is no where near professional. Now, I’m not embarrassed by it and wouldn’t freak if any coworkers saw it (I’m wearing a Yoshi mask). But it’s not the picture I’d use to apply for a job (I wouldn’t want to use a picture, but I digress). Facebook pictures are silly and full of good memories that aren’t professional, because there’s more to my life than my professional job.
      – Wrong email address. I signed up for facebook when I was in high school. I still have access to that old email, but I hardly check it (use it mostly for spam). Plus, it’s pretty silly. My standard email is firstname.lastname at gmail.
      – Separation of work and life. As Alison mentions, this crosses the line. My biggest struggle right now is work/life balance without adding in the complication of Facebook. Heck, I don’t even like adding current coworkers to LinkedIn (in case/when I want to start looking for another job).

      I really can’t imagine this being hugely successful.

      1. Gadfly*

        You beat me to all but one of my points. I share all of these. As do many friends. The only one you missed is that there’s other dated information other than my email.

    2. Hrovitnir*

      Right?? I see no upside to this. I would rather fill the form myself, I don’t want to hand my Facebook to a potential employer on a platter, and I also don’t want the likes of Facebook taking over another major corner of the internet. Same way I’m never going to use your Marketplace, Facebook, stop giving me notifications I haven’t signed up for. -_-

  2. Isben Takes Tea*

    My initial reaction on reading “Facebook’s new job’s feature” was “Eeeeewww…”

    10. turquoisecow*

      I didn’t know this was a thing until right now, and my reaction was just to repeat the word “No” over and over again.

      No. No. No. No way.

  3. Here we go again*

    I miss the days that Facebook was a simple way for students to connect and keep in touch…

    I’ve been off of it for over 5 years and cannot bring myself to go back. Every time I see these new “features,” it is a good reminder of why.

    1. BBBizAnalyst*

      Seriously. I was part of the first wave of colleges who could join. Now, it’s just a cesspool of outdated memes, satire articles reposted as fact and chain letter statuses. Awful.

      This jobs function sounds pretty bad.

      1. pope suburban*

        Yeah, I get why they opened it up to everyone from a business perspective, but I miss the days when it was just a network of classmates and people from your dorm and whatnot. Now, I know waaaay too much about way too many people in my life. And I see more chain letters and bogus (Usually pretty mean) memes than I ever wanted to. Blegh. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s a great way to keep in touch with people all over the world, I’d have jumped ship years ago.

        1. Natalie*

          Indeed. It feels a lot less social these days – maybe it’s just the kind of people I went to college with, but most of my Facebook feed is news articles from various places, and not a lot of actual social networking. At this point I pretty much use it for my book club.

          1. Anna Pigeon*

            Yup, except it’s my run club. And FB didn’t exist when I was an undergrad, but I digress.

          2. Hrovitnir*

            YES. I complain to anyone who listens that Facebook has ruined Facebook and contrary to popular opinion I used to really enjoy it. Now I can’t figure out how to make it user-friendly – Social Fixer helps, but the whole setup is optimised away from meaningful conversation.

            I honestly think most of it could be alleviated by (a) bringing back the status/photo/reblog divide. I always want to see the first, often want to see the second, and seldom want to see the third. I have not found a way to fix this now it’s all one big soup. And (b) making “aquaintances” a more separate thing – if you are a student or travelling it behooves you to be friends with a lot of people, as it makes organising incredibly easy. But while I have made friends on Facebook, I don’t need 200 people or more making my feed impossible to deal with.

            It makes me so sad. I used to get a lot out of it. Now I only use it because there are no viable alternatives and I want to keep in contact with the people I’m friends with on there. (Seriously, Facebook fills the niche of the “casual conversation about your day” kind of connection that just does not work with emails or texting if you or a friend moves.)

    2. Kj*

      Me too. I miss seeing updates from some friends but my husband has it so I can see some stuff that way. But it is time suck for sure.

    3. all aboard the anon train*

      Me too, though I know plenty of early users in my generation who have moved onto other social media platforms (myself included). The younger generation and younger millennials rarely use facebook. I think FB trying to market to job seekers is their attempt to stay relevant. I don’t think FB will ever go away, but it’s certainly not looked at as the “cool social media” site anymore.

      2. Hrovitnir*

        Not necessarily age-specific, but I have noticed as Facebook has become so ubiquitous you’re having an influx of people who don’t otherwise spend a lot of time socialising on the internet so don’t understand internet tone or norms and just dump a bunch of memes and the occasional photo and run, rather than actually interacting with people. It’s like there’s people now interacting with social media the way the stereotypes have told them people interact with social media and it’s self-fulfilling…

        I don’t find any other social media is the same type of interaction as Facebook is/used to be – Twitter isn’t as much for friends and I could never get into the medium, Instagram is a nice idea but all photos and also less friend-directed and I’m also not on there, Tumblr is a whole ‘nother ballgame of confusion though I do manage a bit more personal interaction there, and Reddit is just a big conglomeration of forums so not really analogous.

    4. Venus Supreme*

      My Facebook newsfeed was getting inundated with political posts and memes and I was feeling overwhelmed and my anxiety was getting bad. So I joined a bunch of animal/dog/cat/pet appreciation groups and now my Facebook feed is filled with cute animal photos. I highly recommend it for anyone else who’s felt like me!

      1. Thumper*

        I should start doing this. I sometimes joke that the only reason I still have a Facebook is because of the Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary page

      2. Babs*

        Yep, me too. you can also block those “political pages” without having to block that friend. Because there is no way this friend would discuss or say these things to me in person.

        My rule of thumb with facebook post is that if I wouldn’t say it to a stranger in line at the grocery store or to my mom then I don’t write it or post it.

    5. Junior Dev*

      I had two accounts, one with my real name for a social media job, one with a fake name for socializing. The fake name account got found out and I received a message saying I had a week to change it to my real name. (I think I pissed someone off by disagreeing with them in a discussion and they reported me.)

      I decided to delete the account instead and now I don’t use Facebook socially. I still have the real name account and I’ve used it to build a web app that pulled data from Facebook (you need to register your API key with your regular, personal account, which I find incredibly weird since I always maintain separate website accounts for work and personal business). Working with their developer services, which enthusiastically offer up a creepy level of detail on the personal life of any user you want, sealed the deal for me.

    6. Lablizard*

      Mine is a way to bore my 72 year old father apparently. He is the only one who reads Iran’s opines as far as I can tell

    7. aebhel*

      I like it mostly for organizing get-togethers with people I don’t see often, and sharing baby pictures with far-off relatives. But (as someone who joined in 2004…ye gods!) I do miss the early days.

  5. Bwmn*

    For better or worse, I think that there are just so many people who have biases around Facebook and Facebook usage that it just seems inevitable to trigger someone’s social media pet peeve. Too many/not enough baby pictures, too much/not enough posting activity etc etc.

    I am friends with my manager on Facebook and even belong to a work Facebook group – in my work it’s relatively common practice and hasn’t been a huge overlap with my personal/social life. But I’d still be really wary about Facebook turning into LinkedIn.

      1. Stephanie*

        But then I thought LinkedIn wasn’t doing well and was trying to compete with Facebook? So confused.

  7. Jaguar*

    On a barely-related note, I don’t use Facebook and have long heard (and suspect isn’t true) that if you don’t have a Facebook presence for employers to crawl through, you’ll be considered strange by hiring managers and it will count against you. Yet, at the same time, one of the first things employers complain about is employees using Facebook at work. Like you hate employees who smoke because it makes the office smell but then refuse to consider applicants who don’t smoke because, seriously, who doesn’t smoke? Weirdo.

    Now here’s a new service where companies can hire avid Facebook users even easier.

    1. Here we go again*

      I think Facebook released some propaganda a few years ago related to this, but I don’t believe there was any evidence to suggest this was true.

      Most people are impressed when I say that I don’t have Facebook and haven’t for several years.

    2. Kelly L.*

      I try to keep a public, benign Facebook presence (dog pics and such) and friends-lock anything remotely sensitive, though anything *really* sensitive, I don’t post, because I don’t trust their privacy settings as far as I can throw them.

      1. Gadfly*

        I have been planning to create just such a decoy profile. My theory is that people stop digging at that point, and so with nosy people who know I am on there, it is better to give them something.

        1. Kelly L.*

          Mine isn’t even separate–I just make sure to hit Public sometimes on bland stuff. It’ll look like I exist but an totally boring. :D

          1. Anna the Accounting Grad*

            Same here. Except for the occasional cat photo or legit PSA, everything is kept to friendsz

    3. Natalie*

      That’s funny, I just assume people won’t be findable unless we have mutual friends. A lot of my Facebook friends either have the grandfathered settings that don’t allow them to be easily searchable, and/or use a variation on their name that prevents them from being easily searchable.

    4. Catalyst*

      When I am looking up job candidates (and you better believe I do!) on Facebook, I am always happy to see that they are either not on there, or have their accounts locked down.

    5. turquoisecow*

      I have my Facebook pretty much viewable only to friends. If a company was to search for me before considering hiring me, they’d see my name, location, and maybe a profile picture. That’s it. All but one of my posts has been set to be viewable by friends and friends of people I’ve tagged (like, my husband’s friends can see posts that I’ve tagged him in, but nothing else.) A lot of my friends do the same.

      So, if companies actually *are* looking for a FB presence before considering employers, I know a lot of people who aren’t going to be considered hirable.

      This reminds me of a friend of my husband’s who was laid off and looking for a new job. He previously worked for a large tech conglomerate, so people suggested things like Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn to him. He immediately turned down LinkedIn, because apparently the first thing that LinkedIn does if you apply for a job with them is look at your LinkedIn profile. He didn’t have a profile, and had no intention of creating one. My husband then shared that the only reason he has a LinkedIn profile (which has a photo of his cat and a misleading (but not incorrect!) job title and nothing else) was so that he could tell LinkedIn to stop spamming him with emails.

      1. Long Time Reader First Time Poster*

        Well, to be fair, it makes total sense for LinkedIn to assume you have a LinkedIn profile if you are applying to work for LinkedIn.

    6. Lablizard*

      I have Facebook, but if you aren’t already a friend I am hard, if not impossible to find. It is handy if you have second tier friends scattered across the world (e.g. ones that you don’t text or email regularly but meet up with if you are near each other) and for sharing pictures

  8. Kelly L.*

    Uggggh. Yeah, I like having my online presence balkanized. I don’t want it all smushed together. I’m eternally thankful, Alison, that you’ve never gone to a “comment with Facebook” system.

  9. AndersonDarling*

    I’m all for easy applications, but I think there should be a little effort in applying for a job or else the recruiter will be bombarded with applications. If the job pops up on your phone and all you have to do is click a button and type a line or two, I don’t think you would really give it much consideration before applying. I’d think it would be a better idea if the job post links you to the company’s website and then you fill out the application through their regular system.
    I’d love to see the data on this. How many people apply and never respond when the recruiter attempts to contact them.

    1. Jadelyn*

      Trust me, I’ve been on the receiving end of applications that are clearly off-the-cuff and not at all thought out. A resume with literally no subject line or email body; lots of people apply via Indeed and the attachment is the resume Indeed auto-generated for them based on their profile rather than their actual resume. It’s frustrating and does not endear me toward these people.

    2. Amber T*

      Facebook to job applications is like Tinder to dating. We don’t need another Tinder!

      1. kristinyc*

        My guess would be the data. People will put their whole job history on their profiles. Facebook’s whole revenue model is based on selling user data to advertisers. I don’t list my employer on FB because I don’t want my coworkers to friend me, but I could see FB using this data. (Oh, you work in marketing? Here are a bunch of ads about marketing conferences/software!)

        1. Manders*

          This is my best guess too. When you use Facebook’s ad settings, you can target people who have a specific position, completed a certain amount of education, or are estimated to make a certain salary range. You don’t want to waste a ton of money showing ads for marketing software to accountants. Right now, the problem Facebook’s having is that many people don’t have any information about their jobs on Facebook or have fake/joke job titles and education histories. Facebook also has a history of not being able to make very accurate guesses about people’s interests and habits based on data from their timeline alone, so it may be easier to collect that data by giving users an incentive to enter that information themselves.

          It’s also possible that they’re planning to roll out some kind of paid addition to this feature later.

          (You can check the data that Facebook has collected about you for advertising purposes if you want. It’s funny how inaccurate it can be.)

          1. Manders*

            Link for people who want to check this data on their own accounts: https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences

            Right now, Facebook’s ad preferences have me pegged as someone who enjoys: the abstract concept of time, a random county in Kentucky I have never visited or even heard of, an NYC borough I have not visited in years, dental floss, patio heaters, roosters, and the mineral slate. I am a city dweller on the west coast with no patio and no interest in farm animals or mineralogy.

            1. Rat in the Sugar*

              Woah, thanks for the link! I am delighted to see that all of my interests are painfully generic things like “rock music” and “love”. Just like the old Sting song, you still know nothin’ bout me!

            3. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

              OMG! I’m into chocolate, cats, gambling, France, comedy and the US Govt. I had no idea.

            6. So Very Anonymous*

              One of mine is “US Congress”… with the Dunkin Donuts logo.

              So apparently I’m fond of congresspeople who bring me donuts?

        2. NoMoreMrFixit*

          Bingo. Facebook’s entire business model is based on selling us to advertisers. We’re their product. The more info we give FB then the more targeted the ads become. That’s why they keep monkeying with the privacy settings – they don’t want us to keep things to ourselves.

    3. Collie*

      I’ve been increasingly annoyed at how many people I see using LinkedIn as if it were Facebook. I really don’t care if you think God has a plan for you and that you feel you need to broadcast this through an ugly graphic with watercolor, glitter, and an imposed images of wheat blowing in the wind; I just want to know what your career looks like.

      But that’s just me.

      1. Detective Amy Santiago*

        I am the same way. I have unfollowed a few people that routinely comment on or post political things as well. I don’t need to see that on Linked In.

    4. Alton*

      I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Facebook can profit off this in some way, maybe by charging companies for better promotion of their listings or something.

      But I also think that Facebook wants to corner as many markets as possible. It’s in their best interest to be a “one stop shop” for as many people as possible, and to come up with new ways to get users to depend on their site. Facebook doesn’t benefit from people going to another site for different types of networking.

  11. Katniss*

    This would be especially amusing for me as I use a fake name and joke info in my profile, so it would say my job experience is working at Sneed’s Feed and Seed and as a “Big Wheel” at the Cracker Factory.

    1. Rincat*

      Same here. I put that I work at “the Internet” with “Derp” as my city. Which actually is a city in the Netherlands. So I get a lot of ads targeted for Europeans.

    2. Manders*

      I suspect part of the reason they’re doing this is to cut down on the number of people with jokes in their job and education history (says the Miskatonic University graduate). Facebook is really having trouble making guesses about how to categorize users for advertisers–it’s easier if people have an incentive to enter all that information accurately.

  13. TeacherNerd*

    I wonder if one’s FB friends would be able to tell if you’ve applied for the job. In and of itself it might not be an issue, but if you have work friends whom you haven’t told that you’re looking for another job – or if you’re FB friends with your boss, who doesn’t you’re looking – and they find out via FB, then it’s all sorts of awkward.

    1. Kj*

      Of course, being friends with co-workers/boss on FB has its own problems….. I’m glad I’m not on FB, as it is normal at my office to be friends with EVERYONE including the boss and it is too much sharing. “I’m not on FB” is the perfect excuse not to friend the boss

      1. Rincat*

        My former department was very into FB, although my boss did respect my desire to not connect with him. But on the first things he said when I turned in my resignation was, “Oh good, now we can be FB friends!” Uhhh no. Still don’t want to be FB friends with him, or any kind of friend, really.

    2. Kyrielle*

      Of course, so is forgetting that you have the VP of your division among your connections on LinkedIn and forgetting to turn off updates before you polish your LI profile vigorously.

      I wasn’t actually getting ready to leave then either, but if I’d thought about it for a half-second I’d have turned off notifications before the update, because I freaked out most of my management chain apparently. Luckily they believed me when I said I wasn’t going anywhere – I’d have hated to be first up on any layoffs because of that.

  14. hiyup*

    This also lets employers see your relationship and family status, making it easy for those who want to descriminate against LGBTQ individuals and mothers, in addition to other areas that are also heavily descriminated against.

    1. all aboard the anon train*

      Yes, this. Plus it also alerts a company to your sexuality and even in a LGBTQA+ friendly environment, that’s not always someone wants to reveal since it’s, you know, private and personal information.

    2. Detective Amy Santiago*

      Yup. I created a secondary FB account with zero mention of anything remotely political to maintain our company page. I didn’t want my personal views linked to my workplace in any potential capacity.

    3. Gadfly*

      I keep a low profile in large part because of religion. In Utah, not being LDS still could be an issue (not so much officially, but unofficially with coworkers) and adding to that details of a minority religion that isn’t well understood? No thanks. And I keep in touch with a lot of co-religionists via Facebook

    1. e271828*

      Prudent. Someone would be sure to connect you with that chicken who’s been doing all those robberies.

  17. Amber Rose*

    Also, the picture that I would have on LinkedIn (if I bothered to have one) would be a professional one: me in nice clothes with a polite smile and a bland backdrop. That’s the version of me that I present in a job setting. My FB photo is a selfie of me making a weird face with messy hair while wearing a tank top. That’s the version of me that I present to my friends, because memories and fun and stuff.

    That’s not a picture I want potential employers to see as a first impression… but I also don’t want to take it down. It represents my personal life. I like to have some things in my life that aren’t related to work. -_-

    1. Alex "Barney" Barnaby*

      I came here to say just that!

      My LinkedIn photo is from a professional photo shoot (as in, I went to a professional and planned on using it professionally). I’m in a suit, smiling, and trying to look competent.

      My Facebook profile photos are often of me playing with my cat or covered in sweat after a race. It’s not “unprofessional” to the extent that an employer who ran me through Facebook would have a problem with it, but I don’t want it to be their first impression of me.

      Guess which one I want employers to see?

      1. SimonTheGreyWarden*

        Yeah, my FB profile pictures are 25% steampunk gear (for my small business), 45% pictures of my cats, 10% pictures of my snakes which could freak people out, and the last 20% are pictures of random places I have been, things I have eaten, or video game references. Also, I don’t list my current city (I list the one I lived in two moves ago because I have been stalked in the past) and I left off two jobs that I don’t really want FB knowing about, but would include on a resume because they were longer term.

  18. Jadelyn*

    I swear, FB will not rest until they have intruded themselves into literally every single possible aspect of people’s lives. Social networking…then trying to replace texting with FB messaging…they’ve got their own Craigslist-esque used stuff marketplace from what I hear…and now job applications. Just staaaaaaahp.

    1. Sas*

      Yeah, what is this “their own Craigslist-esque used stuff marketplace”? It has jobs also.?? Where is it? What is it

      1. Emi.*

        You can designate groups as “sale groups,” in which you can write “sale posts,” which have a price field and a “message seller” button, which automatically starts a FB message with the poster. You can also connect your credit card, and send money from FB Messenger.

        1. Jadelyn*

          I actually didn’t know how it worked – I just knew my mom, who uses FB a lot, showed me some for sale posts that looked a lot like the kind of thing you’d find on CL (my partner and I are considering buying a home and so we wanted to see what kind of used appliances and furniture we could find for fairly cheap if we needed to).

          My god, of all the things I do NOT want FB being able to access, my credit card is right at the top of the list.

          1. Emi.*

            You can message people and arrange to send them a check or Paypal or venmo, though, so don’t let that put you off if you see something you do want!

    2. Not Karen*

      It would help if their users stopped letting them do it. The youth group at my church operates solely through Facebook and claims that’s the “only” way they can do it, thereby excluding people like me without Facebook accounts. Uh, nope. Is this Facebook’s fault for having groups or the youth group’s fault for having lazy operators who choose to use Facebook at this expense?

      1. Jadelyn*

        Which is honestly part of what FB is relying on to make this strategy work. If they make it convenient for people to do everything all in one place, all via their service, they’re relying on people being lazy and choosing the path of least resistance, where they let FB handle everything for them because it’s easier.

        It’s just us curmudgeons who refuse to play along that keep throwing a wrench in the works, lol.

      2. Hrovitnir*

        Eh. I have to say, Facebook is about a million times easier to organise things and keep people in the loop than email, and I wish people who were opposed to Facebook would just make a blank profile for clubs and suchlike. It really is much easier to communicate with multiple people via a platform like Facebook – I’d certainly be happy to use an alternative site, but it’s far more effective. /have had to organise things and be an organisee

        I point blank refuse to use Marketplace for this reason though, and there is no planet on which I’d use it for jobs (HAHA-no.)

    3. Manders*

      I posted a bit upthread about how Facebook may be trying to encourage people to give them more accurate data, but another thing they’re known for doing is a company is trying to create a “walled garden” of content and features that people will never have to leave to get everything done that they want to do on the internet. A lot of big companies do this to some extent, but Facebook has been particularly aggressive about it lately.

    4. KV*

      I feel like they’re taking a cue from LINE, which owns everything social media in Asia–from job hunting to games to taxi services to instant payments to calling and messaging. LINE just added the job hunting feature during the summer…

  19. MommyMD*

    As far as Facebook is concerned, I don’t even have a job. I’m a strict not one person from work on my friend’s list person.

  21. nnn*

    On top of the other problems, I wonder it would make you look suspicious/less desirable to employers if you don’t have a robust facebook presence.

    Facebook just isn’t my preferred venue for my online presence, and I only even have an account so I can view a few select people’s feeds. I don’t even have a profile photo. I don’t have any work, education or location information. There is literally nothing posted on my wall.

    If employers were to use facebook for hiring, would this make me less desirable than someone they can see more information about? Would I have to put time and effort into faking a facebook presence on top of everything else?

    2. Stephanie*

      I think it matters if you’re applying for a job to Facebook….which doesn’t seem unreasonable.

  23. Mimmy*

    I didn’t know Facebook had even created this. Definitely a big, fat NOPE!

    I’m not too worried about my personal vs. professional image because my personal image is pretty tame (though I will admit that some pictures of me are less than flattering–thank you frizzy hair!). I don’t like the idea of FB drawing from my profile information – that’s why I never use FB plug-ins on third-party sites, e.g. for shopping.

    I too would be concerned about discrimination. I am actively involved in the disability field and have many people with a variety of disabilities on my friends list. There’s no indication that I myself have a disability–I do–but employers do sometimes make assumptions, so…

  24. H.C.*

    Yeah, I would create a separate profile if I ever use this facebook feature – one profile per person policy be darned.

    1. Grayson*

      I actually have two profiles. One for my friends and family. One for my alternative lifestyle community. This means two email addresses, and what have you, but it’s a lot easier than explaining to the guys I smoke cigars with that “Yes, I do have that interesting lifestyle choice you saw about on TLC. No I won’t share stories. Please just give me your torch lighter, damnit.”

  25. Audiophile*

    As someone who recently found an old cover letter, that not only made me cringe, but also made me realize, I’d open the door to discrimination all on my own, I don’t think I need Facebook’s help for that.

    I locked down my profile ages ago, for a variety of reasons. Stalkery friends, not great exes, I’m not looking to open it up to apply for a few jobs.
    I don’t want anyone seeing stupid wall posts from friends or that I wasted way too much time playing Bejeweled Blitz. I’ll stick with Indeed and LinkedIn, thank you very much.

  26. Ferd*

    My profile picture is not even a picture of me.
    And I really value my privacy. That’s why I don’t have any personal information on Facebook. No work info, where I went to school, or even in which city I live.
    So they won’t learn much from me by looking at my FB profile. Except maybe that my hobbies include trolling anti-vax pages.

    1. Ghost Town*

      Similar. My profile pic is of me, with two other people, from almost 15 years ago, and from a distance where all you can determine is that we seem to be three women with different color and lengths of hair. And that I haven’t removed the Live Long and Prosper banner from the pic.

      My profile is also so locked down that you can’t find me unless we’re already friends. I know it works b/c a new mom friend from my son’s daycare couldn’t find me!

      1. SimonTheGreyWarden*

        Periodically some of the students I tutor complain about not being able to Friend me on FB. I am always glad to know the settings work, but I remind them that I don’t friend current students because it can give the impression of bias and that once they graduate, if they are still interested, they can email me and I will friend them. Most don’t, and I’m fine with that (they go straight on a limited profile list anyway). It isn’t because I am unfriendly – I genuinely like my students – but because I have seen other tutors friend students on FB and it ends up blurring into being accessible 24/7 over messenger and knowing much too much about a student’s private life.

    2. Audiophile*

      My profile picture is a picture of me, just not a current one. I almost never make public posts, everything is restricted to certain friend groups. Since FB makes profile pictures, cover photos and certain information public, I’m careful of what I put up.

  28. Denise*

    Like, totally, no way, I’m so sure, who would want to jump off *that* bridge? :/ Gag
    Bet it’ll mostly fly like a lead balloon.

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