You Have Been Exposed.
July 3, 2006 by Gwendolyn Regina T
Think that your overly-friendly (read: crude) profiles online are just for friends? Not if you consider the wide-ranging accessibility of the internet these days. Read on to find out how you’re actually broadcasting your entire life to the whole world.
Employers are regularly going online these days to find out more about potential employees through visiting sites such as MySpace or Friendster. What for? You might ask. Well, the rationale for checking them out on social networking sites is to look behind the professional façade that people create. Think about it, when you go for an interview you try to put your best foot forward; and that foot usually means a highly idealized version of yourself.
But on the other hand, I’m willing to bet that your accounts in MySpace, Friendster, Facebook and others give a more accurate profile of yourself. You write which movies you really like, what books you really read (or don’t read), who you want to date! Your quirks are either declared by you or surface in the form of comments/testimonials left by friends…there’s so much information about you in that profile! Information that you didn’t think your potential employer could know, or worse, don’t want them to know.
One reason why this can be scary is because if someone were to chance upon on that profile, and hadn’t yet met you in person, a misinterpretation could result. An inaccurate image of the person whom you are will be formed and this may or may not be destructive.
If this worries you, don’t get too comfortable in all that profile-building. Some remedies could be to privatize the profile only to 1st or 2nd degree friends, or be more mindful of what you’re actually putting up online. If you’re unconcerned because either (1) your profile is nearly empty anyway (like mine) (2) you’re unafraid of who you are – wonderful (especially the second reason)! You can continue importing yourself into cyberspace.
Technorati Tags: MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Branding, SG Entrepreneurs
About The Author
Gwendolyn Regina T - Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Apart from SGE, Gwen is also a Partner at Thymos Capital, where she focuses on early stage investments in technology firms. She has had two exits out of her investments via the firm, one of which is iHipo. A frequent judge for business competitions both locally and overseas, she graduated from the National University of Singapore. Gwen also spent some time in Silicon Valley and studied in Stanford University under the NUS Overseas College programme. Gwen is a mentor at Spanish incubator Tetuan Valley, Polish incubator Gamma Rebels, the Singapore Ambassador for the Sandbox network and the Singapore curator for StartupDigest. She enjoys languages, travelling, dance and adventure sports. Gwen can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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