Do we even have private lives anymore?

The CEO of my company is apparently a huge fan of professional networking sites like LinkedIn and Naymz. I joined LinkedIn on his suggestion right after I was hired, and recently I’ve been getting a number of invitations for Naymz. I got another invite today, and I decided to talk to the HR woman about whether they actually use it in hiring. She said she personally doesn’t; she believes in a separation of work and personal lives, but that she knows of one hiring manager who already had reasons to fire someone finding a final reason on that person’s MySpace. Kind of the last straw, so to speak. She also said that, had the hiring manager found this guy’s MySpace before hiring the employee, he might have thought twice about hiring him in the first place. At lunch today the subject came up when one of the women in another department mentioned that she had recently used Facebook to gauge whether or not to hire someone. I expected a conversation about privacy vs. the right to use what people put out about themselves, but no one even blinked. Apparently it’s much more accepted than I thought.

I’m completely intrigued by how people use these sites (MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Naymz, etc) professionally. I know that I’ve censored myself in the little “Jessica is…” part of Facebook since I added a couple coworkers to my friends. Sometimes I want to say “Jessica is completely frustrated and annoyed by her jackass boss.” but I don’t because who knows if it would get back to him? I can’t say, personally, whether I would use those types of sites if I was ever in a hiring position, but I think it would be hard not to personally judge a person for comments or pictures on their profile. Sites like LinkedIn and Naymz fascinate me less, because it’s much more professionally-based from the beginning, so it’s unlikely you’d have someone asking you about that guy you banged last week or the quart of whiskey you drank yesterday, but it’s still interesting to see how people respond to them. Naymz has a “recommend” feature where you can give your opinion about someone on your list. I haven’t explored the site much because I don’t think I want to join it, but I’m curious if the person can see what is written about them, or whether it’s expressed in a percentage. For instance, the HR woman at work said that one of the questions on the recommendation list is “Do you find this person honest and trustworthy?” If I were to join and she was to say that she doesn’t think I’m honest and trustworthy, could I see that? If I could, how would that impact my working relationship with her?

There’s also the question of how these sites change your relationships with your bosses. I’m on the CEO’s contact list on LinkedIn. I personally still have a bit too much of the “boss awe” going on to try to use that contact in ways that might be outside the norm, but what about employees who are younger than me and who might not have been raised the way I was? Are we entering a period when it might be ok for the new hire to send a message to the CEO on LinkedIn and initiate a personal relationship (personal within the professional, I doubt the CEO would go out for a beer with the new hire, but you know what I mean) with him? You always read about how Generation X had no respect for authority and was trying to “break down the walls” between so-called inferiors and their betters, but is it possible that this new generation, whatever you want to call it, is actually doing it?

Isn’t this stuff fascinating?