Elements of Usability: Top 10 Pitfalls of Personas

What is a Persona?

A persona is an archetypal representation of a group of users. They are used in software design to focus the project on users rather than the system. Introduced by Alan Cooper in his book, "The Inmates are Running the Asylum", personas became a popular way to focus a team on the people who would actually be using the product. The concept of a persona is beautiful in its simplicity, which is part of why it works so well in so many different contexts. The idea is that many users will share goals, motivations, tasks, backgrounds and methods and that they can be grouped accordingly. While using this method has many benefits, there are also some drawbacks to consider as well as some mistakes to be sure to avoid.

Pitfall #1: Varied Target Audience

Designing a project for a large target audience can make creating personas extremely difficult because of the amount of information there is to synthesize. Generating personas based on every single user group that may user your product is tedious and often impossible. An example of this scenario is a website with an international audience.

Solutions:

Take a look at your product and divide it up into segments. Choose the most important sections and create personas for them first and then see if you can interpolate from there. If the project is unable to be broken up or the division does not reduce the target audience, then what may be missing is a change of thinking. While international customers are varied, their motivations and goals are more important than their demographic. What does your product do? Try and classify broader categories based on why users are using your product and not their demographics.

Pitfall #2: Too Many or Too Few?

Finding the perfect number of personas can be tricky. Having too many can make the work more confusing, contrary to the goal of clarifying user perspectives to the team. On the other hand, having too few personas means that the user population is being unfairly slotted into specific categories and some user groups may be missed entirely.

Solutions:

If you have too many personas look at all the user groups that you've identified and see if you can amalgamate any of them. Generally you should try not to have more than five personas for a given project, with three being the most common. If you don't have enough, you may need to do more research. Review what you are looking for very carefully. Are you asking the right questions? Are your questions open-ended enough to produce an appropriate variety of questions while still allowing you to identify trends?

Pitfall #3: Assumptions and Stereotypes

Experts and stakeholders tend to have developed assumptions about the target audience that may not be verified. Everyone has an opinion of what they think users will want, but writing personas without verifying claims is dangerous. Personas that are not real are not useful because they do not accurately represent the user group. Also be mindful of filling in the gaps of research with stereotypes. You may discover many motivations that lead you to classify a group, but be careful when adding details that are not directly supported by your data. Fake personas produce fake results.

Solutions:

The only real way to completely avoid this problem is to do your research. Make sure that all the details you add to your personas are validated through quantifiable means. If you are on a tighter research budget you may want to consider focusing your research on the qualities that you are going to use to determine your persona groupings. Filler details that are not used to create categories can be taken from smaller samplings. For example, a group of people wanting software that allows them to perform certain tasks is more likely to be important than the extra details. Of course, you still need to be careful when determining what, if any, information is actually filler.

Pitfall #4: Overwhelming Information

A well balanced and well written persona lends insights into the mindset of users. A long persona with an overwhelming amount of detail, however, can detract from the overall picture. Too much detail can create conflict rather than unity amongst a group as each individual dissects the same ideas differently. Furthermore, some may have difficulty determining what information is relevant for which discussions because of the sheer amount of information available. Increasing the amount your team has to read also increases the chances that they will not read it thoroughly or even at all.

Solutions:

Keep your personas to a maximum of one page in length and choose your layout carefully. Consider using bullets and headers for some portions of the information and paragraphs and sentences for others. Adding an image can also spruce up a persona and keep the information more concise. When actually writing your persona examine each sentence and idea carefully. Ask yourself what that fact tells you about the persona and whether or not that matches the research you saw. Think of how that information would be useful. If you can't think of good answers, remove it.

Pitfall #5: Discomfort with Personas

Some individuals find creating and discussing imaginary “people” to be uncomfortable. They may find it awkward to try to create an individual based on many people or might not be comfortable with descriptive narrative. Individuals whose first language is not English may find personas confusing and difficult to understand and work with.

Solutions:

Remove personal references from your personas to make them more conceptual. Use titles such as “Sales Manager” or “Sports Enthusiast” to describe your personas instead of naming them. Shorten personas and use directed, clear language. You can also change your formatting of the information to include charts or bulleted lists more than sentences and paragraphs. Some situations may also benefit from removing images so as to dissociate with stereotypes.

Pitfall #6: Lack of Focus

It is very easy to slip away from the true focus of your persona and into user design specifics. By allowing specific design implementations to be included in a persona, you remove all other options and discourage creative thinking in a team. Allowing people to have their own ideas of how to best serve a persona is part of designing the best product.

Solutions:

Check for sentences that describe software specifics and remove them. Instead of writing “Jane appreciates being able to hover over a misspelled word and have it corrected” rephrase the sentence to capture the challenge instead of the implementation: “Jane is not confident in her spelling and needs help correcting her papers.”

Pitfall #7: Expenses and Time

Writing accurate and useful personas requires some time and expense. Researching personas can involve large amounts of people and large amounts of data analysis. Experts may need to be hired to do certain jobs. The more accuracy you want, the more it will cost and the longer it will take.

Solutions:

Make a plan for exactly what you are trying to achieve and within what budget. Brainstorm methods of attaining what you are looking for and evaluate each method on 3 categories: Effectiveness at gathering the required information, Efficiency with which it can be performed and Feasibility of costs required. While there is no way to entirely solve the problem of expense and time, there are certainly ways to minimize it.

Pitfall #8: Statistical Personas

Some personas are poorly written using statistics exclusively as the base. Creating a persona based on statistical or demographic data instead of qualitative information is of very little use in designing a project. The most important information within a persona are the thought patterns and motivations that defines a user group. Sometimes motives line up with demographics, but many times they do not.

Solutions:

Consider research methods that give you more detailed and in-depth analysis such as interviews, site visits or questionnaires. Understand what it is you are trying to learn when you are planning your research so that you get usable results. Think very carefully about how you intend to use the results of your research before doing it. Don't be afraid to include a little demographic information as filler for a richer persona, but be mindful not to create stereotypical characters.

Pitfall #9: Elastic Personas

An elastic persona is more like an imaginary friend than a persona. They are typically poorly defined and every member on the team may have a different idea of who they are trying to design for. In this situation personas can easily become validators. Be careful that your team does not begin to invent reasons for sympathetic personas to be accommodating or supportive of their decisions instead of using the personas to drive discussion of solutions.

Solutions:

There are generally two problems that lead to elastic personas: poor definition and lack of participation. The first, poor definition, means that you have included too little information in your description and most of the details used by designers were “inferred”. Make sure that your language is clear. Check for other interpretations by asking others to read it and asking them to describe the persona. The second problem, lack of participation, comes in a variety of ways. It may be that some people don't read or help create personas, or that people do not reference them frequently enough or make them central parts of their design discussions. You can encourage use of personas by making them the focus of meetings and setting an example by using them to generate ideas. Arrange to have copies distributed to each team member and consider posting copies in locations where the team meets frequently. If you have members on your team that are not as experienced with personas, you may want to consider running a workshop that covers the basics of using personas. Include some fun, ice-breaker exercises based on personas to get everyone excited to start using them more regularly.

Pitfall #10: Getting Proof

Even with research, proving that a persona is accurate is difficult because of the nature of the research. Using quantitative methods will give you a good picture of what users are doing, but not why, a crucial question when creating personas. When using qualitative methods, distilling that information into hard proof can be challenging. Some people require hard proof to use personas, however, which is hard to come by if you are limited strictly to numbers.

Solutions:

Look for frequency of information. If 50% of those surveyed said that they used your software for one reason and 50% said they used it for a different reason, that is hard proof that a division based on these two groups might be feasible. You may also want to consider using gradient scales which can be analyzed numerically.

References

A Look At Some Common Usability Elements by Aalap Doshi
Approaches to Creating Personas by Steve Mulder
Conceptual Design by Saul Greenberg
Designing and Specifying Content Requirements by Victor Gonzalez
Evaluations of Attitudes Towards Thinking and Learning by Andrew Laghos
Personas Compared to Target Market Research by Linda Morton
Personas: How Many is too Many? by Charles Sue-Wah-Sing
Personas and User Roles by Larry Constantine
The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper
'Thick Personas' - Using Ethnographic Methods for Persona Development by An Jacobs, Katrien Dreeson and Jo Pierson

An Element of Parenting: Young Children and Home Computers

Skimming the Surface

As a teacher of young children, I see many times in a week just how complex children are. Every day I work with them, I understand a sliver more about how they work and a ton more about how much I really don't know about they work. So it should come as no surprise that trying to decipher the effects of something as vast and complex as the Internet and technology in general on something as complicated and extraordinary as a child and all children in general would be next to impossible.

All children are different. Each child has his or her own view point, his or her own understanding of the world and will interact with technology in a different way. Many researchers have seen, for example, that males are more likely to be interested in video games while more females are more likely to be interested in social networking sites. Furthermore – childhood is a large time period. The effect of a computer in the home is substantially different on a five year old than it is on a twelve year old, yet both could viably be considered part of “childhood”.

The purpose of this article is to give a broad overview of some of the issues parents of young school-aged children face in a culture where computers and the Internet are inescapable elements of society.


Academic Influence

Computers are often heralded as the ultimate educational resource. Cursive writing is no longer taught in all schools, and many teachers require that all assignments be typed up instead of being submitted in handwriting. Furthermore, the computer gives the user access to the Internet, a wealth of information for students to access as well as a portal for other educational resources. Having a computer in the home can increase academic success in students who use them.

Computers can extend classroom work to the home and reinforce concepts taught at school in the home. Many schools have websites where students can access homework, schedules and resources for their schoolwork. Furthermore, computers encourage independent learning because students work independently at a machine. Having a home computer can also encourage problem solving and technological adaptability skills which are necessary as children grow up and enter a workforce that becomes more and more technology saturated every year. Moreover, if a child is confused about school work, the computer provides excellent opportunities to communicated with teachers and peers to get help.

Clearly, technology can offer some wonderful gains to a child's academic development, but the truth of the matter is that having a computer in the home is not enough to increase a student's performance in school. A study done in Romania showed that technology in the home is used more often for gaming and social networking than it is used for school, and students with access to a computer actually showed a decline in academic progress in reading and math.


Social Influence

While computers were originally analyzed for their effect of the academic progress of young children, the effects on a child's social development is equally important. The long term effects of home computers on social skills are still unknown largely because the technology is still so young. Many have theorized, however about whether the effect is positive or negative. Most people would agree that breaking up with a partner by using a text message or Facebook message is not appropriate, but this example is a surprisingly common occurrence amongst teens who never learned proper web etiquette as a child.

Those who claim that home computers are negative for social development point out the fact that many children using computers use them in solitude away from face to face contact with their peers.

Texting, email and posting messages are extremely different than regular face to face to contact and some worry that children who spend too much time with a machine and not enough with other children will develop poor social skills and an inability to communicate with others effectively. Children learn essential skills such as empathy and sympathy through imaginative play but computers do not offer opportunities to engage in activities such as pretend.

Furthermore, many children are changing their definition of friend. Many children have hundreds of friends on social networking sites and have trouble distinguishing the difference between their acquaintances online and their true friends with faces, names and personalities. What kind of person will a child grow up to be if they have only shallow relationships and more of them? Many argue that a lack of deep and meaningful relationships lead to adults incapable of deep and meaningful relationships.

In contrast, some argue that home computers are beneficial for developing social skills in young children. For example, email and social networking sites help children to stay in contact with friends and family that are not close enough to visit frequently. These mediums are also text based, meaning that children have to learn to read and compose sentences in order to use them. Literacy is a key component to communication and communication is the foundation of social skills.

Beyond strictly developing or not developing, the impact of a home computer on a child's social life can be far more varied than simply how much contact a child has with other real people. A growing problem among school children is cyber bullying. Cyber bullies take verbal and social bullying (i.e. exclusion, threats, insults, humiliation, etc...) online. Receiving violent threats or hurtful insults online is becoming a serious problem in schools, since many children are not learning how to be responsible online citizens. Some children who are online bullies are much nicer in person than they are online (Though many are not). Many children who take part in these activities say that they feel more comfortable being mean online because it is impersonal.



Physical Influence

Another key aspect of child development is their physical body. As an adult, we are not growing and changing in the same way that children are. The first decade shapes the way a child's body is able to function for the rest of their life and sitting in front of a computer for too long can cause physical as well as social and academic damage.

The largest physical problem related to home computers is obesity. Children who are sedentary using a computer too long are not as active and can develop weight problems related to a lack of exercise. Obviously having a computer in the home is not the only factor in determining whether or not a child is active overall, but it is also very evident that children who focus more on technology than activity are more prone to obesity and the problems associated with it.

Other physical problems that have been associated with children using technology too frequently are vision difficulty, frequent and painful headaches, difficulty sleeping, attention deficit disorder and repetitive motion strain. Vision difficulty and headaches are often caused by sitting too close to the screen or by staring at it too long. Since adult eyes are developed, the eyes will tire after repetitive use of a computer screen, but a child's eyes are still developing and too much screen time can deter crucial progress in the development of the eyes and proper vision. Difficulty sleeping and attention deficit disorder arise from over-stimulation.

Lastly, the development of important skeletal and muscular tissue can be delayed by sitting too long in front of the computer or television. This growth is extremely important in a child's development, as it can never be made up for. A child whose body is damaged by sitting for hours at a time can never be repaired because it was never able to grow in the way that it was meant to.


Tips for Parents

The computer has benefits and problems along a broad range of topics. The only way for children to receive the positive elements of computers and not the negative ones, parents have to be active and engaged in how their child grows up with technology. By discussing expectations, setting and following rules and supervising online behaviour, parents can foster technologically responsible adults.

1. Encourage your children not to go online without having a plan. Many people make the mistake of going online without actually needing anything. When your child uses the Internet, make sure that they know what they are looking for and where they can find it. Having a plan reduces time spent in front of the screen and teaches how to be responsible about using the Internet.

2. Give frequent reminders to do school work before gaming or social networking.

3. Talk about Internet safety. Remind them not to engage in discussions with anyone they do not know or to give out any personally identifying information. Talk about having responsible discussions with peers online, and emphasize that anything put online can be tracked and remembered.

4. Keep your home computer in a central location and do not put computers in bedrooms or offices where the user is isolated from the rest of the family while on it. Having the computer in a central location enforces the idea that computers do not have to be anti-social.

5. Limit the amount of time children spend on the computer. Many recommend limiting total recreational screen time (including monitors, televisions etc...) to an hour. If children need additional time in front of the screen for homework, make sure that they are using their time productively. Consider setting a limit on school computer time as well if it becomes too much for your child.

6. Encourage balanced time use – if you spend one hour a day on the computer, spend an hour of day playing outside as well.

7. Bookmark safe sites. Many sites featuring adult content have names based off of misspellings of safe sites.

8. Be a good role model. Abide by the rules and boundaries set by you and your family.

An Element of Unemployment: Facebook and the Hiring Process

Would you want your employer to see you like this?

Internet Reputation

When was the last time you checked your Googled your name? When was the last time you cleaned up your Facebook page? Many people don't think about their online reputation, or give much thought to how they socialize online. But information about us is more public, and more accessible than most people thought.

Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have grown increasingly popular every year since their unveiling in 2004. Younger and younger students are using these sites to socialize with their friends and are posting more and more information about themselves. Many surveys show that most University students access a social networking site every day. While there are many debates surrounding these sites, one issue is of particular interest to my age bracket: employers using social networking sites to make hiring decisions.

A few years ago, attention was drawn to the recent development of employers using Facebook to scout out potential employees before deciding whether or not to give them an interview. At the time, this idea was new, and students didn't realize that their online profiles were preventing them from getting interviews despite stellar resumes and excellent marks. Beyond using Facebook as a tool for determining whether or not a candidate was worthy of being interviewed, social networking sites have also been grounds for firing or demoting employees as well.

Despite increasing awareness about the impact Internet reputation has on employment, whether or not it is ethical for employers to be using it at all is still a matter of debate.

Getting the Facts

According to a study done by Harris Interactive, 45% of employers use Facebook to learn about potential employees before hiring them. Why bother, though, with resumes and cover letters being required by every institution? Employers have come up with a few reasons why the practice is important and why it is they feel it is ethical for them to do so.

Resumes do not show character, both resumes and cover letters are carefully crafted works. As much effort goes into building a perfect resume as a final assignment. (In the case of minimum wage work, it often takes more effort to write the resume than it does to perform employment duties.) They are often carefully worded, and demonstrate highly factual data, leaving interpretation to the reader. But how a person behaves and whether or not they will work well with the team already employed is also extremely important. Facebook is a good indication of how a person acts socially.

Furthermore, people who have a bad attitude or who are negative bring down a team regardless of how much actual work they do. Many employees have been caught posting negative remarks about their boss or coworkers. Some employees were caught revealing sensitive information or corporate secrets. An employer who knows that a potential employee has a history of such infractions, they will most likely not be interested in interviewing that person, and Facebook makes finding this kind of information much easier than it was in the past.

Social networking sites can also help identify which candidates are being honest and which ones are not. While lying on a resume is never a good idea, Facebook makes it an even worse idea. With many people discussing their lives on networking sites, employers can easily see if a potential employee has either exaggerated or outright lied about their credentials.

Beyond discovering how an applicant will adjust to their duties, employers are also interested in using networking sites to expose behaviour they feel is inappropriate. 53% of rejected employees were rejected because they displayed provocative or inappropriate images or messages. 44% of employees were rejected because of either implied or explicit use of both legal and illegal substances. Information about employees is more accessible and employers are able to refuse applicants more easily based on how they acted in University as opposed to how they scored.


Unfair Screening

While employees feel that looking at Facebook and other social networking sites is essential in finding the right candidate for the job, many students felt that they were unfairly screened by this method. In one incident, a student with an exceptional resume and academic record was unable to find a job before many months before his co-op coordinator discovered the cause: his Facebook page. Since then, many have voiced an opinion against employers searching social sites for information about potential employees.

The business environment is a professional setting, so it is very common for a person to act differently in the office than they would at home. Most people do not drink or swear at the office but many people do so in the comfort of their own home. Facebook is often a reflection of how a person acts in their personal, not professional sphere, so it is unfair to judge an employee based on information learned from a Facebook page.

Furthermore, Facebook requires no verification for posted information. Since Facebook does not require any type of proof for information posted on their site, it is not always reliable. Not verifying posted data is very common among social sites, so an opinion based on a fake profile could be just as detrimental as hiring a candidate based on a fake resume. While it is possible to doctor one's online profile to look better, the question is: is it common enough for all Facebook profiles to be seen as untrustworthy?

Along similar lines, most networking sites do not require authentication for the accounts created on their sites. Anyone can create a page on Facebook. There are cats that have Facebook pages. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that an angry ex boyfriend or girfriend might create damaging Facebook or mySpace pages. Users do not have to be who they claim to be at all. I have some friends who maintain two Facebook pages, one with their real name which is dedicated to their professional life and a different one under a fake name which is dedicated to their personal life. As above, the question is still how common it is to create fake or damaging pages.

Moreover, some names are common, and have many profiles associated with them. Some names are uncommon but still have more than one profile under the same name. How can an employer be certain that the person they are looking at online is actually the person whose name is on the resume? Some people don't have online profiles, but someone else who shares their name does. Employers don't tell employees when they look at their Facebook page, so it is not even possible to tell if you have been unfairly denied an interview if your employer assumed something based on a profile that wasn't yours.

It is illegal to discriminate against potential employees, but an employer can use Facebook to research employees without telling them, so discrimination could become more prominent. Resumes are meant to give professional information only, because your age, gender or marital status don't matter. An employer who sees a young woman who just married may not want to hire her because they anticipate that she will need maternity leave. Or perhaps an employer may not want to hire a younger graduate because they perceive age to be an indicator of maturity. Either of these reasons are not reasons to deny a person a job, but Facebook enables employers to use them as such because they are not required to disclose why an applicant did not receive an interview.

Access Rights

Beyond the validity and usefulness of the information itself, is the issue of privacy and what information should be accessible to an employer. Some argue that Facebook and other social networking sites are for personal use only, and that other uses should not be permitted. If everyone had to censor their Facebook profiles, it would defeat the purpose of having a networking site. If people are creating fake personae for employers to see, it makes having a profile somewhat pointless.

From the employer's perspective, however, Facebook is public and any information posted on it is available to the public. Many networking sites have options to make some content on a profile private or viewable only to friends, so anything that is left in the open is fair to look at. Typing a potential employee's name into Google is also available to anyone with a keyboard and an Internet connection. Employers often do searches on potential employees to see what is linked to their name.

Despite many employers actively using Facebook to learn about their staff, some employers don't actually use social sites themselves, but rely on others to do it for them. In a few cases, an employee “snitched” on another employee, resulting in a layoff. Often these layoffs were for comments posted on walls or in status updates that were offensive to the company, a higher up or co-worker or was sensitive information. In this case, the employee is often viewing the private page of their peer, either because they were added as a friend or because they were looking over the person's shoulder. Should this type of behaviour be encouraged? Should an employee be found innocent of the what was accused but the employer finds other undesirable information, can they still be dismissed? There is nothing to prevent an employer from saying the reason is for improper use of Facebook, even if the real reason is different.

Furthermore, some employers may ask young employees who are in the same network as a potential employee to do a background check. There have been documented cases of a scenario where an employee agreed to perform a similar task because they were afraid of losing their own job.

How can you help yourself?

While it can be difficult to clean up your Internet reputation, there are some ways that you can clean up your online dirt. There are also some ideas that can help you preserve your privacy online and present a cleaner image to potential employers while retaining your freedom to express yourself personally.

Use your site's privacy settings

Check your social networking site for extra privacy and security settings. Set all but the most basic and public content to your private network of friends. Employers are more likely to see your public page than your private page. It is possible, however, for employers to gain access to private pages through your network of peers.

Remove old photographs and posts

If a post is older than a week or so, it is probably garbage. There is no good reason for people to be digging through wall posts from too far back. If you think you might need information in a post, save the page to your computer before removing it from the Internet. Don't store tons of photographs on your site. Remove pictures from your profile if they are older than a few months to a year.

Be extremely careful who you accept as a friend (And delete people you aren't actually friends with)

Do you actually talk to the girl who sits across the hall from you? Do you really like the guy from accounting who added you the other day but you don't really know? Would you spend time with your co-workers outside the office or invite them to your home? If the answer is no, think twice before adding them to your friends list. When you accept a friend, you are allowing them within your private sphere and giving them access to your information.

If you wouldn't normally talk to someone, don't see them often or haven't seen them in a long time, it may be time to delete them from your friends list. You never know when someone might decide to snoop your page years after you stopped being real friends.

Create a second Facebook profile

If you want your profile to look at its best for employers all the time, consider creating a profile with the sole purpose of attracting potential employers. Use your full name (so that employers won't get you confused with someone else) and showcase your skills, talents and experiences. Use your facebook page as an extended portfolio – complete with audio, video, photographs and written content. Be sure not to include details that should not be relevant in a job search such as birth date, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, or political views.

Create a second page under a pseudonym or a nickname for your personal circle. Be careful to choose a name that would not be associated with you to a potential employer. (i.e. don't choose “Bob Smith” as your nickname if “Robert Smith” is your real name.) Even though this is your personal page, it is still a good idea to follow the advice above and keep it at least somewhat clean.

The main point in this method is making your “employable” profile as accessible and obvious as possible. Using your full, correct name, having a properly identifying image and accurate information listed all contribute to your first profile being more effectively targeted. On your personal page, using a name that is not easy to find, enabling appropriate security settings and choosing your friends wisely go a long way to keeping your personal and professional online reputation separate and secure.

Delete your profile and start a fresh one

If your profile is really in desperate need of an overhaul, you may want to consider scrapping it completely and starting anew. This method ensures that you didn't miss any potentially discrediting information and that what you are presenting is the most up-to-date and accurate information about you there is. It also gives you a higher degree of control over what others can see since you are starting with nothing and building up instead of starting with a large volume of information and building down.

It is becoming increasingly common for University and College students to delete their social profiles just before they graduate in order to create new, work-friendly profiles for their transition into career life.

Google your name every few months (and before applying for a job)

Check what sites come up from searching your name and what they say about you. What kind of a person do you appear to be based on the search results? You may not be able to remove what other parties have posted about you but you can help to debunk myths about yourself by discussing them on your profile page. If someone else with the same name keeps coming up when you search your name you may want to include some text explaining which sites are about you and which ones aren't to avoid confusion employers may have.

Be careful what you post

The most common sense advice is to think about what you're posting when you are posting it. Can it be taken out of context and make you look bad? Would someone be hurt, upset or offended by something you wrote? Are all your pictures suitable for family viewing? If you wouldn't be comfortable with everyone seeing certain content, you may want to think twice before posting it. Everyone needs to let off steam when they've had a bad day, but tweeting all your friends about how you think your boss was a complete moron all day is probably not the best way to do it. A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn't say it to a person's face, it's probably best left offline.



In Conclusion

Whether or not it is morally right for employers to look at the social profiles of applicants remains undecided. Regardless of the correctness, though, the fact remains that almost half of all employers are considering Facebook as a reliable source of information about job candidates. That means that as adults, we need to be more conscious of our online image and take care not to tarnish it. Like piracy, there are so many people doing it, that all we can do is make accommodations in our own lives to the best of our abilities.

To anyone who is currently applying for a job or who has recently received an interview, I wish you all the best. Good luck.