By Ashleigh Woodall
Oklahoma Daily, U. Oklahoma

(UWire)--As seniors prepare to graduate and apply for jobs, employers are looking beyond social networking sites to compare resumes against online personas.

Employers can use major search engines like Google to find information about applicants, and social networking sites like Facebook are becoming increasingly used for information, said Bette Scott, University of Oklahoma Career Services director.

"Anything negative on social networking sites like Facebook can negatively affect whether you get a job," Scott said.

When students fix their Facebook sites to reflect their accomplishments, their chances of getting hired increase

But the online persona doesn't end there. More information is indexed online every year by search engines, making it easier for employers to track the small bread crumbs of information Web surfers leave behind on the internet.

"Employers will make every effort to make sure they have the right person," Scott said. "They search for credit checks, convictions, felonies and their Facebook. The Internet has made it easy to find out information on them."

While Scott said she did not know any specific cases at OU, she said nation-wide cases reported in the career services industry of students losing job opportunities because of their internet image is increasing.

"The national list serve really helps us get a good feel for trends in hiring, and students' internet profiles are beginning to affect whether they get jobs," Scott said.

Some factors about getting a job are unavoidable; a question about convictions or felonies is typically on job applications. Cleaning up a social networking profile, however, is one simple way to increase the chances of getting a job.

Scott also advises students to consider deleting them entirely once they start applying for jobs, or internships.

 OnGuardOnline.gov offers tips to protect your 'Net identity

 GetNetWise.org 
provides info on Web safety  "You can't control what others put on their own Facebook, and if it reflects negatively on you, employers will still see it," Scott said.

Another suggestion Scott gives students is to create a "professional Facebook" to promote the student, and should reflect their college accomplishments rather than what they did last weekend.

If the student wants to keep their Facebook page as is, OU Career Services employees Ashlie Cornelius and Kathy Green said in their blog, students should put their security to the highest privacy setting.

They advise using caution though, as some employers will find their way around the privacy settings. Some will even have interns add the applicant as a friend in order to see the profile.

Cornelius and Green recommend that students check to see if the company has a Facebook or other social network profile and connect with them that way.

When students fix their Facebook sites to reflect their accomplishments, their chances of getting hired increase, Scott said.

"Nationally, college recruitment for jobs is down 22 percent," Scott said. "However, there are still jobs out there ... Students who are trying to get jobs seem to think its completely hopeless, but it's not."