1 in 5 employers screen profiles

CareerBuilder.com recently conducted a survey of "more than 31,000 employers" and found that 22% of employers look at social-network profiles as they screen job candidates, ComputerWorld.com reports, and 9% said they plan to do so. That represents rapid growth in the practice, since only 11% of hiring managers said they screen with social sites in 2006. Of the 22% who said they do, one-third said they "found information on such sites that caused them to toss the candidate out of consideration for a job." Interestingly, that last percentage was exceed by that of hiring managers who found content in profiles that convinced them to hire the candidate (24%); these managers said what convinced them was "profiles showing a professional image and solid references can boost a candidate's chances for a job." Please see the article for the eight "top areas of concern" employers look for in social-network profiles.

Looking for 'great,' not just 'good'

For parents of aspiring software engineers (or just about anyone job seeking in the tech industry, maybe any industry), a commentary in Business Week by serial tech entrepreneur Auren Hoffman spells out how important it's getting (for startups, anyway) to find and keep "great people," not just good ones, and what constitutes the former. Food for thought, anyway - and thinking and discussing is vital filter development for adolescents. Working on the filter in their heads is both protection and good for developing the impulse-control and risk-assessment part of the brain not complete till anybody's early 20s - not to mention good prep for job interviews with people like Hoffman.