“just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean somebody isn’t after you.”

Also, my dad told me a long time ago that manners, customs, restraint, etc. allow people who don’t like each other to still successfully interact.

Don’t ask, don’t tell is often just basic courtesy, no?

Even if I limit access I still can be found in search results if someone is able to get on my college network, right? Would hate for potential employer or corporate client to see a facebook account with me and a shirt and tie, and then another at the beach. Even if they can’t get to the full profile they obviously know what’s up. What do you think?

I had a a friend that was able to hack this problem successfully – 2 years ago Facebook was more liberal in changing your name – so he used a first letter of his last name for his “personal” profile, and created another FB profile when he started going for jobs and internships. That way anyone searching for his first name can still find him – and he can have full visibility on his profile. Can’t change names like that now unfortunately.

However when you are one out of a thousand job applicants HR is trying to find anything they can just to thin the herd. And nevermind that same HR executive purging your job application for a bar picture has a porno mag in his car or better yet a call girl under his desk.

If you are a club promoter, showing you doing shots of tequila is fine, it serves a purpose for your career. But if you are just trying to keep your personal and professional life separate. It just seems the people calling for total transparency are usually self employed or working in a quirky Web 2.0 company, and are totally clueless when it comes to the realities of HR practices today. Keep the Facebook profile separate or block the access to non friends.

My personal life is just that, personal. I don’t need the guy sitting next to me seeing that I have a nice house with a pool, or that a few times a year I still party like I did 10 years ago.

If I want to share something from my personal life with someone from work, I’ll tell them face to face.

I’m 53, on Facebook and Linked In, but I mostly use Facebook, and I use it to discuss everything I’m interested in. What Facebook has meant to an old fart like me is a way to keep in touch not only with current business friends (and family and personal), but to facilitate reconnecting with many folks from past professional lives. These are people with whom I’ve already been through the wars. I don’t show pictures of myself downing tequila shots, mostly because I don’t do that stuff anymore, but some of these old friends remember me when, so there’s no reason to hide the version of myself I choose to present on FB. What seems to be happening is that doors reopen for work and other involvements that would’ve not been available before, and I have to think part of the reason for that is they know me.

there is no point in having two Facebook accounts, when there are features to control who sees what baked into the way FB works. here’s the step by step:

1. Go to Friends > All Friends
2. Click “Make a New List” on the left hand side.
3. Put all of your professional contacts into a list called “Work”.
4. Now go to Settings > Privacy Settings
5. You can go into each of the four options separately. Within each one, you can specifically define (using dropdown menus) which lists can see what. My professional contacts can’t see any of my photos or videos, for instance. You can even restrict them from seeing parts of your wall.

hope that helps! should be super-simple.

If you choose the first one, then you can keep only one account, else you can get Facebook for live, and linkedin for work!

I also think this problem is unique to young professionals. For one thing we have had access to Facebook longer because originally you had to have a college email address to join. This means that we have years of spring break pictures and goofy wall posts tied to our profiles. As a young professional, especially being a woman, it is already difficult enough to be taken seriously. The last thing I want is for pictures of me in my Halloween costume to affect that.

I would be hard pressed to find someone who is completely transparent in their networking offline, so why are we expected to be completely transparent online?

I am not so concerned about colleagues, etc, seeing my Facebook profile, I wouldn’t be posting much that I wouldn’t want anyone to see, and I’m also pretty open about things.

Ultimately, I feel like trying to hide online never works!

However, I think that creating a separate account further leads me to live a disjointed life. While I don’t necessarily want my boss to know that I, in fact, HAVE danced ON a bar in New Zealand (pics have been removed, thankyouverymuch), my social and personal life are very much a part of who I am, as is my professional life. By removing one from the other, I feel that I’m all but splitting my personality into two worlds and trying to keep up with leading two lives…something I REALLY can’t keep up with and makes me feel scattered in both worlds.

If you’re interested, there’s a great book called _A Hidden Wholeness_ by Parker J. Palmer about living this “whole” life. Give an interesting perspective on personal implications of compartmentalizing.