The HR dept at work looks thru social media outlets to ween out candidates. They use it as a way to see a persons true character (ie BAD character). Some people are very stupid and it’s HR’s job to keep them away from the hardworking, intelligent ones.
“The HR dept at work looks thru social media outlets to ween out candidates.”
Not all do, some are too busy playing farmville to worry about hiring the best person.......
What we do see, is cases where a FaceBook page of someone face down, drunk in the gutter - getting their resume' discarded. Life is rough enough, without giving your potential employers damning evidence. FaceBook will NEVER get you a job; but it will certainly prevent you from getting one, as well as get you fired if you post something derogatory about either the company, your boss or your co-workers.
It's best to never have a FaceBook page at all. The internet NEVER forgets. The other piece of free advice I'll throw out there, is "Give some thought to your email address". When I worked at a company, I got a resume with the email "got12incheswhatugot@hotmail.com". Now, if this is your personal email, that's fine ... don't care. But, before getting tossed, we did pass the resume' around the lab and all had a good laugh at it. If you must have an email of this nature, I would suggest getting a serious email for business work as well.
For example, mine is first.lastname@gmail.com.