My online thesis

I read an article today about how employers are looking up potential employees on Facebook and Myspace to get an idea of what they are hiring. Brilliant. I'm all for it.

Here is a segment from the article.

"Risqué pictures are not the only way a job applicant can be tripped up. Pictures of illegal behavior like drug use or heavy alcohol use could disqualify a candidate too. Some also suggest poor writing and bad grammar in Facebook profiles and in blog entries can raise a red flag about communication skills. Derogatory comments or complaints or radical political positions also can draw the scrutiny of a prospective employer."

Well, obviously dirty pictures boots you right out of the hiring pool. But lets think. If you want to post trashy pictures of yourself, dandy, do it. Don't get mad when someone you don't want to sees it, Like your mom or your dream company, when you weren't clever enough to put your photos on private or limited veiwability. So, I completely support that aspect of business investigation.
Pictures of drug use and heavy alcohol use. I can see that too. Don't want to hire dr. dave if dave still hits the bong. Or that new architect can't seem to hold his booze.

I have two stances on the next part. Poor writing and bad grammar. First, this isn't a formal forum. No one is out blogging their life and thoughts as a thesis. There may very well be some very grammar savvy people out their blogging away. But to most of us, this sort of writing and communication is the most informal way to let those thoughts out and keep up with friends.
Having that said, I completely understand not tiring someone who writes like :
Hey Gurlz, watup 4 real. 2 buzy to talk. LMAO, ROTFLMAO. I runs over 2 da stoe 2 see U.
and all that equal nonsense. Unless they need code breakers.

But if there are companies seriously not hiring people for random misspelled words and sentence fragments, that is unreasonable. These aren't term papers.

As for the comments, yeah, people really shouldn't leave really nasty tasteless ones. but, you know, it is a place for young people to communicate, what do you really expect. Same with the political views...it's young people...

Still, Kudos to companies for using readily available unprotected public information to do hiring due diligence.