Privacy

Privacy / Profile — 1 Comment
31
Dec 12

You Can’t Hide on Facebook

When I speak at law schools, I’m always impressed with the number of students who have removed themselves from Facebook search so that potential employers can’t find the students simply by entering the students’ names in the Facebook search bar.  However, with the privacy changes Facebook introduced earlier this month, Facebook is removing the ability of members to hide themselves from Facebook search.

You may still have the option to hide yourself from Facebook search because the change is being rolled out to members gradually.  However, you should start planning for the change now, and I recommend considering the following:

  1. Does it belong on Facebook? Before posting an update or photo, ask yourself whether the information should be shared on Facebook.  As we’ve been reminded by the recent Randi Zuckerberg photo privacy breach, your information can still be shared by your friends who have access to the information—no matter how private you try to make the information by applying the most stringent privacy settings.  So, before posting anything, ask yourself, “Would I mind if the entire world saw this information?”
  2. Use your privacy settings. The bright side of the recent Facebook privacy changes is that the settings are more user friendly.  Spend 10 minutes today reviewing your settings to make sure your information is protected.
  3. Apply the Office Desk Photo Rule. No matter which privacy settings you choose, your profile picture is public to everyone.  Now, that you can’t hide from a Facebook search, more people will find you and see your profile picture.  It’s even more critical that you choose an appropriate Facebook profile picture.  In my book, I recommend applying the Office Desk Photo Rule when choosing your profile picture:  choose a picture that you would display on your office desk.  The picture can be casual, just not too casual.  Avoid the pictures of you taking shots or posing in a bikini.
Privacy — 3 Comments
9
Sep 12

Hide Your Job Search from Your Employer on LinkedIn

The Contact Preferences section on LinkedIn (where you indicate why you want someone to contact you) troubles many attorneys because they don’t want to state that they are interested in “career opportunities” or “job inquiries” if they are currently employed.  The attorneys are concerned that their employers will see that they are looking for a new job.

A new site, HireSignals.com, recently launched with the purpose of hiding a job seeker’s job search preferences from the job seeker’s employer but sharing the job seeker’s preferences with recruiters.  Here’s how it works:

  • Job seekers would not list “career opportunities” or “job inquiries” as their Contact Preferences on LinkedIn; rather they would use HireSignals.com to convey their job search status to recruiters.
  • Third party recruiters and job seekers create an account on HireSignals.com which syncs to their LinkedIn accounts.
  • Recruiters must log in using a company email address (and this email address must match the primary email account on their LinkedIn profile).
  • HireSignals.com screens the recruiters who join, and the recruiters must agree to a strict code of conduct.
  • Job seekers choose one of four options as their job search status:
    • Actively networking
    • Passively networking
    • Not networking (but open to seeing the market)
    • Not networking (do not contact)
  • Job seekers enter guidelines for recruiters, such as desired salary.
  • Job seekers can indicate the domain name of companies they don’t want to see their job search status (e.g. domain name of current employer).
  • When recruiters perform a search on LinkedIn to look for people with certain requirements, the job seekers using HireSignals will appear with a shaded background in one of four colors.  The four colors correspond to the job seeker’s status and can alert that the job seeker is looking for opportunities even though his LinkedIn Contact Preferences does not list “career opportunities.”
  • Recruiters can then see the job seeker’s salary and other guidelines and contact the job seeker through the LinkedIn platform.
  • Click here to view a short video that walks you through using HireSignals.

I’ve signed up for a HireSignals account and am waiting for approval.  I like the purpose behind the site because I think most attorney job seekers are concerned about their current employer learning of their job search.  Any platform that helps to preserve confidentiality is a step in the right direction.

In addition to using HireSignals, here are my other two recommendations to job seekers who are employed and don’t want their employers to learn they are looking:

  1. Turn off activity broadcasts so your employer and others do not see when you connect to recruiters on LinkedIn. Go to Settings, Turn on/off activity broadcast, and make sure the box is unchecked.
  2. Hide your connections. Go to Settings, Select who can see your connections, and select Only You.  By hiding your connections, your prevent your employer from being able to go to your page to see how many recruiters are among your connections.

Thus, by using HireSignals, turning off activity broadcasts and hiding your connections, you can conduct your job search without the fear that your employer will learn that you are looking.

Privacy / The 6Ps of the BIG 3 Book — No Comments
10
Mar 11

Descriptive Changes to LinkedIn’s Privacy Features

On February 15, 2011, LinkedIn began rolling out a new Settings page to certain LinkedIn members to gather feedback and test new features.  Three privacy features discussed in my book appear differently on the new Settings page.  The features have not changed – only the description of each feature.  They are now labeled with a more descriptive phrase as noted in Table 3.1.  I’ve noted page references where I discuss the features in my book.

Table 3.1

Privacy Feature

Old Settings Page Description (Image 3.1)

New Settings Page Description (Image 3.2)
Prevent notifications from appearing in your contacts’ news feed each time you make significant changes to your profile Profile and Status Updates (page 102) Turn on/off your activity broadcasts
How are you described when you view another user’s LinkedIn profile (3 options – (1) name/title is shown; (2) profile characteristics like, “someone in the legal industry from the DFW area;” (3) anonymous user Profile Views (page 97) Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile
Prevent your LinkedIn connections from seeing your other connections Connections Browse (page 92) See who can see your connections

Image 3.1 shows a view of the old Settings page.

Image 3.1

LI settings

Image 3.2 shows a view of the new Settings page – the three features described above are highlighted.

Image 3.2

LI new settings menu highlighted

Privacy / Profile — No Comments
22
Aug 10

Get Hired Through a LinkedIn InMail

Perhaps the greatest benefit to maintaining a robust profile on LinkedIn is the possibility that a recruiter or law firm hiring authority may discover your profile and reach out to you about a job opportunity.

How can recruiters and hiring authorities you don’t know contact you about job opportunities?  Are there steps you, a job seeker, must take to allow recruiters/hiring authorities to contact you?  Do you need a paid account for recruiters/hiring authorities to contact you?

Connection Not Required to Send InMail

The recruiters/hiring authorities may contact you about job opportunities by sending you an InMail message on LinkedIn.  The recruiters/hiring authorities don’t need to be connected to you to send an InMail.

Acceptance of InMail Messages Required

However, recruiters/hiring authorities can only send you an InMail message about an opportunity if you indicated in your LinkedIn Contact Settings that you will accept InMail messages.  Thus, the burden is on you, the job seeker, to set your account to receive InMails.

To check to see if you accept InMails, click on Settings in the upper right menu bar.

LI Settings

Scroll down until you see the Email Notifications category on the left side of your page.  You may stop here if LinkedIn indicates that you are receiving InMails.  If you aren’t receiving InMails but want to receive InMails, click on Contact Settings.

email notifications

Then, click the second option, “I’ll accept Introductions and InMail.”

LI contact settings

All Accounts May Receive InMail–Paid Account Not Required to Receive InMail

As you can see in the chart below comparing the various accounts on LinkedIn, anyone–including users with the free, basic LinkedIn account–may receive InMail messages.

LI compare accounts

You will note, however, that recruiters/hiring authorities must have a LinkedIn Business account or higher (and, most do) to send an InMail message.

Bottom Line for Job Seekers

  • You DO need to accept InMail messages.
  • You DON’T need a paid account.
Performance / Privacy — 1 Comment
18
May 10

Search Facebook Status Updates with OpenBook (& Another Reason for ‘Only Friends’ Privacy Setting)

Here’s another reason why your Facebook setting for “Posts by Me” should be set to “Only Friends.”

There’s a site, OpenBook, that allows anyone (i.e., potential employer) to search for key words in Facebook status updates.  Here’s a sampling of some searches I did and some of the results:

Search Term:  “Law Student”

OpenBook law student last final

Search Term:  “Law School”

Openbook law school twitter

Openbook law school penn

Search Term:  An AmLaw 100 Firm’s name

Openbook firm ab

Search Term:  Name of a Law School

Openbook smu law

Only Friends Privacy Level for Optimum Privacy

The good news about OpenBook is that it appears to only search public status updates.  My privacy level is set to Only Friends and my updates did not appear (I tested several searches).  To change your privacy level to Only Friends (or check to see your current setting), go to ACCOUNT –> PRIVACY SETTINGS –> PERSONAL INFORMATION & POSTS –> POSTS BY ME.  Change the drop down menu to “ONLY FRIENDS” (unless, of course, you don’t mind having your updates open for anyone to search).

Privacy — No Comments
21
Apr 10

New Privacy Menu on Facebook

Facebook launched a new privacy menu on April 19, 2010.

FB privacy settings menu april 21

You can read more about the changes here.  I discovered the new menu while revising the privacy chapter for my book.  I noticed the Profile Information section was missing from the new menu; the information previously contained in Profile Information is now divided into two categories:  (1) Personal Information & Posts; and (2) Friends, Tags and Connections.

One effect of this change is that your two settings for pictures (Photo Albums and Tagged Photos) are now in different sections.

  1. Photo Albums – Personal Information & Posts. To edit the privacy level for your photo albums, go to Personal Information & Posts.
  2. Tagged Photos – Friends, Tags and Connections. To edit the privacy level for your tagged photos, go to Friends, Tags and Connections.

Previously, both photo albums and tagged photos were under the Profile Information section.

I created the following table to show you what information is contained in each section on the new privacy menu.  I’ve also included the default privacy level settings.  The good news is that it doesn’t appear the default privacy settings changed (I created a new Facebook account to test the privacy levels).

Information

Default Privacy Level
PERSONAL INFORMATION & POSTS
Bio Everyone
Birthday Friends of Friends
Interested In and Looking For Everyone
Religious and Political Views Friends of Friends
Photo Albums Everyone is initial default; can change default as well as setting on each album
Posts by Me Everyone
Posts by Friends Friends of Friends
Comments on Posts Only Friends
Allow Friends to Post on my Wall Friends can post on my wall
CONTACT INFORMATION
IM Screen Name Only Friends
Mobile Phone Only Friends
Other Phone Only Friends
Current Address Only Friends
Website Everyone
Add Me as a Friend Everyone
Send me a message Everyone
Email Only Friends
FRIENDS, TAGS and CONNECTIONS
Friends Everyone
Family Everyone
Relationships Everyone
Photos and Videos of Me Friends of Friends
Current City Everyone
Hometown Friends of Friends
Education and Work Everyone
Activities Everyone
Interests Everyone
Things I Like Everyone
SEARCH
Facebook Search Results Everyone
Public Search Results Allow public search profile to be indexed on search engines

Note: the table only includes the sections in the new privacy menu where you can adjust the privacy level; thus, it does not include  (1) Applications and Websites; and (2) Block Lists.

Finally, the privacy chapter in my book discusses certain categories of information in the table above in greater detail, including specific implications (both positive and negative) for job seekers and recommended privacy levels.