Clara Raubertas // Freelance Web Design, Web Development, and Web Consulting // Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts clara raubertas design. development. consulting.

I came across another zomg-your-Facebook-page-will-ruin-your-career article today. These articles usually bug me with their implication that employers are looking for employees who don’t have thoughts and feelings. I’m not a fan of employers being concerned about what employees are doing when they’re not at work — if you show up for work on time and do the job well, it shouldn’t matter whether you spent your outside-of-work time doing (or how “wholesome” it was or was not). But I’m optimistic that as more and more people who are used to documenting parts of their lives online enter the job market, employers will stop caring that there’s a photographic record that you were drunk at a college party once — after all, it’s not like anyone thought all pre-Facebook students spent their entire collegiate career soberly studying.

I’ll accept that for now it’s probably prudent to keep anything too risque off your profile, especially if you’re currently looking for work. And the author certainly has a valid point when she warns against letting your Facebook page betray lies you’ve told to your employers (”I was sick!”). But some of the quotes in this article really rubbed me the wrong way. “Try to list some favorite books, not just films and music. Employers will be impressed if you look well-read.” That sounds a little like you are trying to encourage me to lie about my reading habits! Even if you’re just suggesting I exaggerate, if someone’s not much of a reader and is applying for a job where that isn’t specifically part of the qualification, should giving the impression of well-read-ness really make a difference? Or should we be encouraging a culture of honesty on these sites, so that potential employers and employees can look for a legitimately good fit?

Then the article quotes another site’s list of ten turn-offs to potential employers. “Foul language”, “lewd jokes” — shouldn’t be a big deal, but OK, I see what you’re getting at. “Evidence of excessive alcohol consumption” seems pretty eye-of-the-beholder — it’s not necessarily obvious from a photo of a partier whether they’re overindulging or just tipsy, nor how often they’re found in this state. (I suspect they mean “Don’t let anyone see you with a beer in your hand EVARR!1!1″.) And then they add “Membership of pointless / silly groups”. Oh noes! I’d better resign my membership in “If this group reaches 4,294,967,296 it might cause an integer overflow”, lest anyone think I have a nerdy sense of humor!

Or maybe I’ll just let a personal profile reflect a little of my actual personality.

Before the Facebook platform was introduced, I knew plenty of people (in fact, I’m probably one of them) who had accounts, but rarely logged on — most people weren’t sufficiently compelled by the minute changes in their friends’ music taste to check it daily.

But once the platform was introduced, all my friends suddenly started finding reasons they NEEDED to check Facebook constantly (for most of these people, those reasons were Scrabulous). This is why the platform is such a brilliant business model. No matter what your obsession, Facebook can now target it. Not into “poking”? Fine, here’s some zombies. Not into zombies? How about political propaganda?

I never got into Scrabulous, but just as Long Tail advocates would predict, I’ve found an app that targets my obsessive streak. So far I’ve mostly percieved the platform as an opportunity to crankily delete dozens of invitations from people I’ve forgotten I ever knew to install apps I would never care about. But the allure of seeing my friends neatly categorized by type and temperament compels me to switch to the other side.

So if we’re Facebook friends, you should expect an invitation to add the “personality type” application. And you NEED to accept it.