The following is a guest post from Bob Sale and if we had our way, there will be more to come from him.

In order to illuminate why social networking sites such as Myspace might be misleading to employers, let me paint you a mind picture:

You’re an employer.  You received a resume that caught your attention because it was really good……a little too really good.  You become suspicious and decide to research the person’s personality by googling their name.  You type in Rob Jansen into the search engine and up pops two profiles of Mr. Jansen.  One is on Myspace and one is on Linkedin.   Because HR is the only department allowed to access Myspace at work and because you love taking advantage of the advantage to have advantages, you look at the Myspace page first.  At first glance of the page, you think, “Woah! This must be a mistake.  This isn’t Rob’s page.  This page belongs to Donny Drinksalot.  You glance up at the URL that reads Myspace.com/Robjansen.  O.k. it is Rob’s page.  You start to browse the page to learn more about Mr. Drinksalot.  After some very intricate detective work, you conclude that Rob is an alcoholic, womanizer, and has a weird infatuation with Rosie Odonnell.  Then you remember the Linkedin page.  You check it.  You find out Rob has some pretty influential contacts, and he knows Joe Snodly.  You and the Snodster had a pretty wild time in Boring, Oregon two years ago.  You contact Joe and ask him about Jansen.  After talking to him you decide to give Rob a chance.  When you ask Donny Drinksalot why his myspace page is so risqué, he replies with confidence:

Rob:  “Mr./Ms. (your last name here),  I know I don’t speak for myself when I say there is a difference between my social life and my work life.  If everybody acted the same with their friends as they do at work, everybody would have a 168 hour work week.  I believe in having two social Networking sites.  My Myspace page is for my clan, My Linkedin page is for my plan.   And if you were at work two years ago when you were with the Snodster, You would have never done what you did with a latex glove and a baby elephant sticker.”

You:  Nicely put Rob. Nicely put.