After I encouraged those of you not currently on a social networking site to promptly do so, I received an e mail from a friend of mine with the subject line reading “scary”.

He was referring to Keith Ferrazi (Never Eat Alone) quoting Dan Schawbel , author of the just-published Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success about the number of hiring managers who play Big Brother during the hiring process. According to Schawbel, “One in five hiring managers uses social networks for background checks”.

Like Obama’s view (as compared to Clinton’s) on inhaling “isn’t that the point”, I take the position being found is what you want.  After all, to Google is now a verb. Living out loud inverts the power pyramid so you have a way to be found by those who you want to find you i.e. potential employers. With this power comes responsibility. Responsibility to not post naked pictures of you and your posse while in Daytona Beach on Facebook no matter how great your tan lines. Even if you have won more medals than any other athlete, hiring managers don’t like their employee to be photographed holding a bong at a fraternity party.

While I am sure the statistic is more or less in line with how many employers actually screen these sites as part of due diligence, you can not live your life looking in the rear-view mirror as you drive.  Don’t misinterpret me.  I am not an idealist.  I am a pragmatist.  Like any power there is a white hat and a black hat of those who hold it, and so it goes with the power of the virtual space.

Fearing a potential employer will discover something about you has become the hackneyed parable of the digital age. It does not mean it isn’t a real issue to manage. You may find it useful to heed some cautionary advice about the need to be careful what you post on Facebook, but to live in constant fear such that your self-expression is denied is not a fun way to live either.  Ask those people who did hard time after Tiananmen Square what life without a first amendment is like. Ferrazi in his newsletter goes on to discuss the appeal of authenticity as a branding tool. Worrying about what you say to whom is anything but authentic.

The current economic climate fuels these superstitions like gasoline to matches as smart, eager twenty somethings leave the comfort of college only to find a hostile job market awaiting them. There is a permanent record in cyberspace true, but most using these sites know that. There are new and insidious ways your cyber-fingerprints can be used against you, but poor judgment is poor judgment.  The internet does not replace thinking.  The discussion rarely goes there, and as a result it adds to the growing cottage industry of ways to protect you from the embarrassment of a bonehead move.

Rather than fear the ramifications of what could be used against you, a better strategy is to use social media for broadcasting your own message.  This is Ferrazi’s advice too, and he is a master networker. On another level, this becomes the digital age’s version of growing up.  It may require a shift in thinking from social to professional, but since the barriers to entry are virtually nonexistent there is no cost to shifting what sites you use or how you use them.