Facebook May Hurt Your Job Chances Straight From a Recruiter's Mouth.

This is one of my 'tough love' articles. I thought I was getting too old, but then I called a few gal pals up and they confirmed my sentiments: your Facebook pictures may hurt you from getting a job, so clean up your albums. Today. Ok, enough with the pout, I'm serious.

One of my friends is an Executive Recruiter. We just got off the phone and she confirmed that MANY entry level jobs have NOT been extended to Chicagoland applicants because their Facebook pictures didn't sit well with their future employers.

You can kick and scream all you want and tell me that your albums are private, but I'm telling you the same thing my recruiter friend told me (she's pretty high up with her firm).  I also got the same feedback from a Google pal and another friend that is a Creative Director at an agency.  The first thing people do is look you up on Facebook. Pictures are also searchable on search engines.

Employers don't want to hire someone after seeing the bottle of JD you have close to your face or the leg you have wrapped around the guy at the bar. It's all about first impressions. If you are serious about landing a job after college, clean it up, ladies.

This also includes pictures of kissing your girlfriends, doing shots or anything else that y'all may do that senior year of college:).  If you want to be stubborn about it, so be it. The outside world will be just as stubborn and either not hire you...or find out about your pics later. Other things to do:

• Change your voicemail and make it sound professional. My recruiter contact told me that one of the biggest requests she has for  undergrads is to change their vm
• Make sure your email address isn't something 'sexymama@hotmail.com'. Have your ACTUAL name in the email, ladies.