Social Networking Sites Impact Future Employment

One thing that many Millennials are learning the hard way -- like this woman who was denied her teaching certificate -- is that folks in other generations don't respect the artifical barriers that many Millennials feel should surround their Internet lives. When I've talked to Millennial students about consequences for remarks or photos on social networking sights, the students have almost all considered it dirty pool for a current or prospective employer to delve into their Facebook or MySpace lives. Interestingly, the generation that lives its life in public seems to have the highest expectation of privacy.

When I've served on Admissions at different institutions, I pretty routinely Googled the prospective students and sometimes would also search for them on Facebook or MySpace. As the years have passed, I've noticed more and more that those students seemed somewhat aware that prospective law schools might be checking them out (as evidenced by the Facebook photo of one kid in a suit standing against a background of law books). However, it seems that when students are not in application mode, some seem to revert back to some risky online behavior. I'm guessing that they believe they're not on anyone's radar anymore. But once you're in law school, you're almost always on someone's radar.